


Don't Drink From That River To Forget

by paulsonhaught



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, What’s a waverly?, WynHaught brotp, Wynonna is a P.I., an ungodly amount of wynhaught, im not complaining, seriously, so is Jeremy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-08-22 00:12:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 64,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16586996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paulsonhaught/pseuds/paulsonhaught
Summary: Nicole is a police officer at a Calgary area hospital.  Wynonna works as a P.I. Yes, the best friends have been through hell together, but that doesn’t stop a tiny vegan stranger from falling through a wormhole/portal thing into their third-floor living room.ORthe wayhaught au where Waverly doesn’t exist... until she does, and Wynonna calls Nicole “Babygirl”OR ORpost-Garden, where a small Earp may or may not have ended up in the wrong universe after escaping. I like to think of this as a fic where CANON has a baby with an AU and a weird-shiny-angsty, astrophysical, greek mythological CANON/AU fic is the babyOR OR ORim a nerd, just read the thing





	1. a river runs through it (her)

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is super appreciated! 
> 
> I'm still in the planning phase of the bulk of the story but I'm excited about where it's headed. Hopefully you guys enjoy it!

With the realization that her half order of loaded nachos was most definitely a full order, Nicole Haught hung her head in defeat. She had not gone out to Shorty’s with the intention of only finishing a portion of the food she spent her meager funds on. At least she could take comfort in the fact that she was not responsible for the bar’s over-zealous ‘let’s-stuff-our-customers-until-they’re-ill-because-we-live-in-the-new-western-world’ mentality. She had learned by now to take her wins when the universe offered them.

It was Friday night and she couldn’t shake the nagging itch in her stomach, a sensation she felt urged to sooth with crappy bar food. It was a weird feeling. One that throbbed just below the surface, landing somewhere above her gut and below her sternum. It was not consciously noticeable, but it was heady enough to alter the way her mind perceived the shadows that the dysfunctional beer tap cast over her untouched plate. It moved through her entire body.

You know that feeling when you drink caffeine too late in the day? It runs through your veins, waking all parts of you, making your arms hum with a discomforting restlessness?

That's how Nicole felt. Except she hadn’t had any coffee.

She could sense that signal travel under her skin. Along the axons of her nerves, passing through neurons, out through her brown eyes. It was a push and pull of light that cast itself out through orbs that normally exuded confidence and an unfailing fealty to the commitments she made. It was an aura that tossed itself willingly upon everything in her field of vision.

Without it, she would not have viewed the jalapenos atop the store-bought tortilla chips in a bluish-white tint, one that caused all colors she saw to bleed into a monochrome. She had never realized that it settled like a blanket over her entire world. It threw shadows on the people and objects in her environment, casting a cold, sourceless breeze on all things in her vicinity. Her eyes saw the blue shade everywhere she looked, not realizing that it was an unnatural hue that had taken hold of her entire life. To her, this was how things had always appeared.

To you and me, well, it looked like an action movie whose film reel was given that inorganic blue tinge, where the world in the movie was saturated in a perpetual twilight as if reality actually looked like that. (It doesn't). And for a reason that she was unable to summon at the time, the sub-par chips and cheese pushed her own recognition of this growing unease out of the shadows.

She leisurely picked at the shredded beef stacked on top of browning guacamole, glancing up to the stunning stranger nursing a lager at the bar-stool next to her. The woman looked to Nicole, then allowed her gaze to shift down to the nachos in front of the redhead. Nicole followed the woman's gaze towards the counter and briefly allowed a thought to echo a little louder than it had since the last time she had ordered food with meat in it.

It was a thought that made her shudder with embarrassment. She had always feared that if she considered living out that truth, it would only bring her family shame. She knew it would cause them pain in knowing they had failed to raise the daughter they had always pictured. She didn't know if she could ever develop the courage to tell them to their faces, that she had hid that secret from them all these years. It had stayed with her since she was a young girl. The thought pervaded. _Oh my God, I think I'm a vegan._

Ever since Nicole had visited the city's medical examiner's office as part of a senior project for her Forensic Science requirement five years prior, she had been incapable of discarding from her mind the look of preserved cadaver flesh when she ate meat.

Yes, she cared about animals. She loved dogs and sloths and videos of cute baby elephants that crept across her twitter feed. And yes, she hated seeing stories of big game hunters traveling to Africa to wipe out endangered species in the name of human supremacy. But damn. Nothing else in the world made her want to give up meat more than the vivid memory of formaldehyde stinging her nose.

"Hey, I haven't touched these. You can totally have them," Nicole said casually to the stranger still eyeing the food.

The woman looked up quickly, realizing she had been caught staring at another person's meal. Redness flushed her cheeks.

"Oh, gosh, I didn't mean to ogle your food like that," the woman laughed. "Not hungry?" The woman eyed Nicole, admiring the redhead's forest green bomber jacket draped over a well-fitted black t-shirt. Straight, shoulder-length, orange hair landed just above the two-inch wide Canadian flag patches that adorned the angles of her shoulders. There was no mistaking it. It was a look that most strangers shot towards Nicole when they saw her on the street. She looked fucking cool.

"No, I am _always _hungry,"__ Nicole furrowed her brow comically as she continued, "But I think I just decided I'm a vegan." She laughed to herself, wondering where on earth this random decision came from.

Weird.

She nudged the plate towards the woman with an easy smile.

"Well, okay if you insist. Who am I to reject free nachos?" The woman accepted the plate and was soon joined by a female friend. The two strangers turned away from Nicole and engaged themselves in deep conversation over shared chips, as Nicole sunk back into thoughts about her day.

It had not been an easy shift at the hospital.

Her unit was called three times to the fourth-floor psych ward to apprehend a suspicious individual that had slipped past the locked unit's doors. Each time Nicole walked onto the unit with her partner, Lonnie in tow, the nurse would point towards the end of the hall, signaling to the officers where the commotion was taking place. Every time they escorted the man off the hospital campus, they were met with a call no more than twenty minutes later from the nurse manager saying he had found his way back to the floor.

The third time it happened, Nicole had approached the man slowly, knowing by now he was generally harmless. Her tall and slender form towered a couple inches over him. She looked down and spoke in an authoritative tone.

“Sir, this needs to stop. You can’t be here.” She started leading him back towards the main doors when he stopped in his tracks, causing her clumsy partner to walk right into the man’s back.

“No, not me,” the man said off into the distance.

“Excuse me?” she retorted. She looked at him more sternly, her right eyebrow jetting up in confusion.

He was in his early to mid-thirties. From what she could tell the man had the look of someone that had wandered right off the streets. The fabric of both his shoes was separating at the soles and his denim pants were caked with old dirt. She could practically feel a long-embedded coldness emanate from his dirty skin. Her mind wandered, associating it with the sort of cold that comes from sleeping outside long-term.

There was all of that. Then there was the smell.

“What does that mean?” Nicole was getting bored of this back and forth. She had reports to write up and was not fond of this weird little man that kept interrupting everyone’s day.

“You can’t be here,” she said again.

“No, you can’t be here” he stated, this time looking her dead in the eye. She unflinchingly stared back at him. Her eyes bore into his trying to figure out what they were hiding. She turned her head forward with an exasperated look and a roll of her eyes, slightly amused at the whole situation. She dragged him forward towards the hallway, leading him into an empty elevator which nearly closed on Lonnie’s face. The three rode it down to the lobby in silence.

Nicole saw a woman and two small children sitting in the waiting area. They were curiously looking up from their seats with childlike wonder and cartoon-ish, wide eyes as the redheaded police woman escorted what the mother explained was, _a_ _bad man,_ past them towards the exit. Nicole tightened her grip on the man’s arm while simultaneously signaling Lonnie to flank the other side of the perp while they walked past the kids towards the main entrance of the hospital.

Once they were outside, she decided she was going to make herself perfectly clear.

“If I see you back here again, you'll be taken in by the Calgary Police Department. Do you understand?” Nicole eyed him as he took this information in. He had the most curious face, his bearded chin crinkling at the ground as if he was attempting to solve an impossible math problem in his head.

“I’m gonna need you to give me confirmation here, bud,” Nicole said impatiently with a hint of a drawl.

He looked up and nodded. That was enough for her. She let go of his arm and he started walking away, down the busy street, and around the corner until he was out of view of the officers.

Nicole would not see him again for another four days.

A ringing clang of a fork dropping on the bar floor brought her back to the present. Back to the dark, grungy dankness of Shorty’s Saloon. The lingering tone of the metal utensil on old tile resounded for a few extra seconds before it was absorbed by the twang of country music coming from the decades-old jukebox.

Nicole took out her phone and checked the time. 10:01. Time to go home. She pulled out a twenty, slapped it on the counter, chugged the last few sips of her beer, and said a quick thank you to the bartender.

When she walked outside, she could smell the scents of the bustling city. Hot dog vendors and pretzel stands sprinkled the sidewalk on her walk home. Music leaked out of pubs, and the loud echoes of a crowd singing inside one concert hall made its way into the electric street, enveloping her in a distinct feeling of guilt.

Nicole was young, only 28, and living in a city she loved. A city she had grown up in. She wasn’t walking home early on a weekend night because she didn’t have friends.

She did.

And it wasn’t because her friends weren’t out enjoying the city in a way that part of her knew she should be.

They were.

It was the other part. It was that low rumbling voice deep in her brain that held her back. It was the same part of her that blanketed her whole world in blue.

She didn’t want to be out. She wanted to be home. She didn’t know why. She knew she wasn’t a particularly shy person, but she was feeling more closed off lately. She felt afraid, and not knowing why scared her even more.

She put her key in the front door of her unit, turning it until it clicked. Nicole pushed open the door and walked in, happening upon a scene that instantly made her drop her angular jaw.

Jeremy Chetri, her downstairs neighbor and friend, was one article of clothing away from being stark naked in her kitchen.

He was in a heated debate with Nicole’s roommate. They were both shouting through the haze of a Tom Waits song that Nicole recognized as Little Drop of Poison. It was playing through the raspy speakers that sat on the floor against the wall to her right. In front of the slightly broken speaker that let out a continuous buzz, sat Doc, who was smiling in his own socks and polka dot boxers as one, Wynonna Earp giggled uproariously at her nearly irate neighbor.

“Wynonna! I’m not going to just take off my underwear! Stop trying to make me take off my underwear! You're hustling me in strip poker, and I don't think I appreciate it.” The heels of Jeremy’s hands were massaging his own temples as he walked up to the table, stopped, turned around, and walked back towards the kitchen island. Tom Waits crooned in the background.

 

_And she left in the fall, that's her picture on the wall_

 

“I don’t know what to tell you, dude. Rules are rules.” Wynonna cracked a smart-ass grin and looked to Doc for confirmation. He nodded.

“Rules are rules?? RULES ARE RULES??????” Jeremy was visibly stressed. The pacing quickened, and his voice escalated in decibels. “Since when do you care about rules, Wynonna?”

Wynonna put her hand on her right hip, curled her eyebrow at the ceiling and considered her answer. “Since you started losing and this became super funny. To be honest.”  
She smiled wider as he became even more furious. She looked back to Doc, “Honesty is the best policy, right?”

He responded, “Now, Wynonna, I do believe honesty is indeed the best policy," Doc confirmed.

All the sudden, Jeremy, the biochemical genius that lived downstairs, feeling completely boxed into a corner, dropped his boxers in a fit of rage.

 

_She always had that little drop of poison_

 

“Um, hi guys,” Nicole finally said with eyes wide and an amused look on her face.

Doc and Wynonna simultaneously looked to the foyer.

“Well I’ll be! Haughtstuff, perfect timing!” Wynonna was on the verge of apparent hilarity.

Jeremy slowly shuffled his feet, currently tangled in dropped fabric, and rotated his entire naked body to see Officer Nicole Haught standing before him, in all his glory.

Nicole turned to him.

“Wow, Jeremy." She looked down at everything, and back up, smiling coyly, "I – I had no idea.” The cheesy smile hadn’t faded from her face.

Jeremy just stared, mortified. He quickly bent over to pull up his underwear, a movement that caused Wynonna to shriek and Doc to shield his own eyes from the sight before him.

“Hello Nicole. Lovely to see you,” Jeremy said quickly, his face, lobster red from embarrassment. “How are you doing this evening?” Jeremy was grasping at dignity he knew he had obliterated the second he dropped his pants.

“Well, I’d be better if I had known, Jer,” Nicole said in a serious tone. Doc and Wynonna were giggling through the smoky song lyrics.

 

_Nobody knows, they're lining up to go insane_

 

“Known what, Nicole?” he asked, knowing full well what Nicole was about to say.

“Oh, well, you know,” she gestured towards his bottom half, “if I had known, about your…situation, maybe I wouldn’t have been in that year-long relationship with Shae.” Nicole held back tears of joy at the horror on Jeremy’s face. Wynonna and Doc could no longer contain themselves. They burst out laughing, keeling over each other at the kitchen table, playing cards flying out of Wynonna’s flailing arms, raining on the wooden floor.

“And with that, I bid you goodnight,” Jeremy said curtly with a sardonic nod of the head. He started collecting his clothes, as everyone in the room started booing him.

“Oh, come on, Jeremy, I’m just playing. How about a drink?” Nicole was being sincere. She silently hoped she hadn’t overdone it with the jokes.

He seemed to relax at this. A smile found its way to his lips and rolled his eyes at his friends. “Fine, I’ll stay for a drink. But only if you all agree that what happened in this apartment dies when the clock strikes twelve.” Jeremy eased up, shaking his head of the whole ordeal.

Nicole walked to the fridge and retrieved two cold beers, one for herself, and one for her neighbor. She handed it to him in silent agreement.

The four friends drank their beers, sharing stories from their day until all that was left was Nicole and Wynonna. The same Tom Waits song played on a loop while Nicole threw a blanket to her sleepy roommate who was starting to curl up on the couch.

“Hey, why don’t you go to your room? You’re gonna fall asleep with the TV on again, and I’m going to have to turn it off in the morning, just like the last four times,” Nicole said in a half joking, half serious voice.

“Eh, whatever,” Wynonna said as she spread the heavy blanket over her lounging body on the couch and happily closed her eyes.

Nicole sat in silence on the recliner. Wynonna opened one eye and scanned her roommate curiously.

“Hey,” she said.

Nicole looked up, “hmm?”

“What’s up with you?” Both of Wynonna’s eyes were open now, concern shading her tired face. She leaned forward, putting her weight on her left elbow to convey the role of supportive friend. Something she only spared for a chosen few.

Nicole responded a little too quickly, “Oh nothing. Weird day is all.”

“Ok,” Wynonna said suspiciously, leaning back into the lumpy pillow lying on the arm of the living room sofa. She had tried at least. But if Nicole didn’t want to open up to her, she wasn’t going to force the issue.

After a few more minutes of silence, Wynonna had all but considered the conversation dead. Then Nicole spoke again.

“Do you ever…” Nicole paused, not even sure herself what it was she wanted to say.

Wynonna opened her eyes. “Do I ever what?”

Nicole let the question hang awkwardly before continuing on, letting Mr. Waits fill the void she had left.

 

_Did the Devil make the world while God was sleeping?_

 

She seemed to be deciding on whether to commit to this question.

“What, Nicole?” Wynonna sat up.

Nicole committed.

“Do you ever feel like something is, I don’t know, missing?” Nicole stared at the floor while she spoke. That same blue haze from earlier was creeping back into her vision, now more than ever.

“Missing?” Wynonna looked at Nicole, visibly confused.

“I don’t know if ‘missing’ is the right word,” Nicole paused again.

“Um, you’re gonna have to help me out man, you’re getting a little more…abstract than usual. You sure you’re okay?”

Nicole sat back. She stared at the white plaster wall behind the speakers. She watched as the wall danced in grey-blue shadows. Whatever she wanted to say was on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t seem to capture it in words.

Wynonna could tell Nicole was troubled with something. Since they had been kids, she had never known Nicole to be anything other than pragmatic and logical. She saw the world as either good or bad. Black and white. Grey shades of ambiguity did not compute for the cop. It’s one of the things that made them so different. It was also one of the things that made their friendship so strong.

“Do you remember when we were little and we would dare each other to drink from the creek in the park, even though there were all those signs that said not to?” Nicole looked thoughtful, not sure where she was going with this.

Wynonna laughed, “Yeah. I refused to do it, but you drank the water and were laid up in bed for two weeks with that parasitic infection. You told me later that you had made more trips to the bathroom that month than in the years since.”

Nicole clutched her lower abdomen and made a regretful face. “Not peak-Nicole, I’ll give you that.”

Wynonna laughed mildly, still staring at the wall. “I remember confessing to my aunt, Gus that I was the one who made you drink the water. I cried all night. Woke up the next morning and wrote you a three-page letter saying how sorry I was. Not sure if I ever gave it to you. Probably tore it up and burned it out of embarrassment.”

“No, I saw it.”

“What?”

“Yeah, you did burn it,” Nicole laughed at the memory. “But not before I saw it at your house one night. We were having a sleepover and it was on your bed. You wrote that you were ‘so so so sorry, and you hadn’t meant to get me sick, and that you were a coward, and that we were best friends and you hoped we would still be best friends after I got better.’”

Wynonna chuckled at her former sentimental self, “Huh, I said that?”

Nicole smiled at the blue-ing wall. “I remember something else too.”

The redhead continued, unsure why her heart skipped a beat before speaking. “At the end of the letter, you wrote—and I don’t know why I remember this word for word, but I do—you wrote, “If I had only been lucky enough in my life to have a sister, I would have wished she had been someone like you.”

Wynonna’s smile faded. She was touched that Nicole had remembered that, but something about it gave her pause.

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“What a sap, I was.” Wynonna’s smile returned. They seemed to both be thinking long and hard about something, but both equally unsure about what it was.

Silence filled the room for a few more minutes before Wynonna spoke.

“What does that have to do with what you said earlier?”

“About what?” Nicole had been so lost in reliving the memory, she forgot how the conversation had even started.

“You asked if something was missing.”

“Oh.”

“What did you mean?”

Nicole thought for a second and then answered honestly.

“I really don’t know, Wynonna.”

Both women leaned back in silent contemplation, staring at the wall behind a crooning Tom Waits. Wynonna was no longer tired. She stared, in synchronicity with Nicole, while both watched as the white plaster facade curiously changed colors from an eggshell white to a pale, sky blue.


	2. Out of the blue [into the black]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you’re so inclined, I’d recommend checking out the Neil Young album, Rust Never Sleeps, while you read this chapter

_Nicole hiked clumsily through the snow. She felt cold. So cold. Down to each individual phosphate particle set deep in all two hundred and six bones in her body. No one had told her where she was. It wasn’t announced in the dream, it was just true, like most facts we come to trust when we’re asleep. She knew not to question it. The same way she knew that city bus drivers drive buses and that the Fall sky in Alberta was the most crystal blue she had ever witnessed. She saw that same blue now. It extended its indigos and its ceruleans, it held out its cobalts and azure, yale periwinkles until she felt a warm ultramarine wrap securely around the bare skin cells of her forearms._

_The blue held her close, picked up each leg, activated each muscle in her lower extremities until they twitched with an irrepressible need to move forward. And she did. She moved forward. She knew why. And she didn’t. She felt everything. She felt nothing. My my, hey hey._

_It was the same way she knew that she had been here before. She couldn’t remember when, if maybe it had been in another dream. Maybe. Because of course Nicole Haught knew she was dreaming. She sensed this truth because she had never been so cold in her life. Just so damn cold. Unnaturally frigid. Like each forward step might shatter bones that she desperately needed to work. The last time she felt anywhere near a cold like this was when she had almost drowned as a young girl. A pond? A lake? A unicorn’s ice pool? Can’t remember._

 

 

 

_It’s better to burn out_

_Than to fade away_

 

 

_The memory only had cold in it. Recalling the facts of reality, memories from her waking life, while trapped in her dream was as difficult as grasping for the plot of a dream after having waken. It slips. You reach out for it with sure fingers, but it lurches away at the last second, out into the haze._

 

 

_They give you this_

_But you pay for that_

 

 

_The weight of the blue sky both lifted her off the path and held her down to earth with a force so strong that she wasn’t sure she’d be able to go on. But she did. Each time her foot made contact and she was certain it would never again disconnect from the terrain, it did just that. She felt an invisible magnet continually rotating under and between her two feet. Right, engage, release. Left, engage, release. Over and over while a second magnet pulled her forward, creating a delicate dance of limbs translating to miles and miles traversed. Somehow, she knew those magnets were powered by that wild blue._

_She was walking a path. Crunching against inches of weighted blue-white powder that she had walked before. Each foot fit perfectly in Haught-sized boot prints that collected in a trail stretching out in the distance before her. Despite the seizing pain of the cold, each landing felt right. Like she could remember the exact moment she had made the tracks in the snow. Her feet could almost hear the yelp of the first compression she had made when she had been here before. Another memory. Each print held a history that narrated itself to Nicole when her foot made contact._

_She was propelled forward, more and more sure with each step. Panting from the incline, she could tell there was less oxygen to take in, so she accepted the fact that her lungs were just going to have to work a bit harder to keep up with the demand._

_Come on, Nicole. Just breathe._

_The tightness in her chest didn’t stop her. It only fortified her quads to keep climbing the path. Knowing that when she reached her destination, wherever it happened to be, she’d breathe a fullness that would grow in the expanse of her chest. It would inflate her lungs and fill every centimeter with the cleanest oxygen she’d ever greet._

 

 

_And once you’re gone_

 

 

_You can never come back_

 

 

_Nicole could see something shimmering just above the crest of the hill. One hundred yards to go and she knew she would wrap her hands around something she had lost. No. Misplaced. It was small. The size of the blunt end of a hammer. The rays of blue light cascading down from the sky funneled towards the object, forming the sheen that reflected directly into Nicole’s eyes. She knew what it was, but in that moment forgot. If she could just see it. If she could just get a little closer._

_Just a few more rotations of the magnet._

_Nicole, come on, you’ve trained for this, she thought._

_But just as real as the dream felt in that moment, a moment book-ended by her intense desire to lay eyes on the thing she had lost, no, misplaced, a dream that felt more vivid than anything her brain had ever perceived, just as solid as the feel of blue warmth in knowing she could almost see the answer, and just as gripping as the cold blue holding her down and lifting her up, something even more substantial took hold. A pure black enveloped her world, vanishing the dream and the memories that inhabited it._

 

 

_My my, hey hey._

 

 

_Nicole Haught fell into darkness._

 

 

 

 


	3. not all those who wander are lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I had originally planned on a certain reunion happening this chapter, but I wanted to get this up. it'll be soon I promise! Enjoy :)

_Where am_   _I_?

_Okay think, think._ She scrunched up her nose and held the bridge of it with perfectly tan fingers, trying to remember how she had gotten here.

_Where is here?_

That song was still stuck in her head. That same damn song.

 

 

* * *

 

It took Nicole all weekend and Monday to shake off the lingering anxiety of the dream that she couldn’t even remember. She had woken on Saturday morning drenched in sweat and in the throes of a full-blown panic attack. She hadn’t had one since she was a kid but there was no mistaking it, her stress was out of control. She could remember when she was younger, dealing with episodes like that, but couldn’t ever remember it coming on so suddenly. So violently. Her skin had been cold to the touch, and she couldn’t help but feel like something was wrong with her eyes, even after the attack had worn off. She made a note to herself to call her doctor on Monday to schedule an appointment.

Tuesday approached faster than she would have liked. Nicole forced herself out of bed and lazily walked to her bathroom vanity. She stood there, allowing her gaze to travel across her reflection. After washing her face and putting on a light layer of make-up, she shook out her hair to give it a little more volume. She liked this shade, but she missed the ginger orange she had had before the salon she went to six weeks prior had dyed her locks a fiery red that looked a little too manufactured. They also hacked off more than she expected. No more French braid. She had liked the braid. Nicole wouldn’t admit it out loud because she knew it probably sounded a little weird, but having had the braid almost her whole life, she felt a little untethered without it. It had given her an unusual feeling of control, something that grounded her in familiarity.

She thought about that for a second while looking at herself in the reflection.

_Life before the braid. And life after_.

She shook her head and turned up the corner of her mouth, briefly closing her eyes as she laughed to herself. _Who says shit like that, Nicole?_

Nicole looked down at the analog watch on her left wrist. Crap. It was already noon and her shift started at 1:00. The Chief was going to have her head. How had she slept in so late? That wasn’t like her. She retrieved her sharply pressed uniform from her closet and threw on her boots. She ate a Greek yogurt in two bites, fed her orange fat cat, Calamity Jane and then took off for her walk into the city.

Nicole lived just on the other side of the Bow River. The sky was gray, but she knew it would burn off later-on. As she walked along the water towards the footbridge that dissected Prince’s Island, she placed her earbuds in her ears and turned on her Brandi Carlile playlist. She let the rasp and warble of the singer’s voice lull her into a lighter mood than she had felt in last couple days.

She looked up at the early September sky and only wished the moment could be polished off with the warmth of the sun on her skin. She thought about how the rays were blockaded behind Calgarian clouds and had the sudden desire to purse her lips and blow gently to part the occlusion herself.

A gust of wind cascaded down out of the gray, foreshadowing the coming winter. It caused red strands of hair to dance and goosebumps to rise on her arms. A singular shiver traveled down Nicole’s spine and she couldn’t ignore the familiar voice that sounded off in her brain like a morning alarm clock. The three words that echoed just as the whoosh of frigid air set itself fully over her whole body made zero sense to her, but she was no less certain of the gravity they held. She was no less able to calm the aching worry she felt drop to the bottom of her stomach. Despite the shock that the appearance of the three words had given her, she knew that the pure fear she felt, the fear that dug itself into her skin, embedding like seeds in spring waiting to sprout, she knew the fear was not for herself, but for another.

 

 

 

_She’ll be cold._

 

Nicole stopped in her tracks and yanked her earbuds out. She frantically looked around to see if anyone had said the words out loud to her on the trail. There was no one. Just her. Panic formed a sheath around her heart, squeezing to the beat of the voice reverberating within her skull. She wondered if she hadn’t slept enough last night. No. She went to bed early. And woke up late. Maybe it was the song she was playing? She rewound it three times to see if she could find lyrics she hadn’t realized were there, but to no avail.

Nicole had never felt more off balance than she did standing alone in that park.

She tried to keep moving. She couldn’t be late to work. Nicole didn’t do late. But Nicole couldn’t help but realize she was not okay. Not even close.

When she walked into the police office of the hospital, she greeted Lonnie. He was holding the top half of a chicken salad sandwich in one hand as he pulled pickles off with the other.

“Want these?” Lonnie said, nose turned up in disgust.

Her pulse skipped a beat. She suddenly couldn’t remember if she liked pickles or not. She hesitantly accepted the paper plate and placed it on her desk, then started towards her boss’s office.

“Haught, I wouldn’t go back there,” he shook his head with a timid look on his face towards the Chief’s closed door. “He’s, uh –,” Lonnie trailed off. He was usually a stuttering mess but today he seemed like it was additionally clipped with just having been chewed out by Chief Nedley.

_Great._

She redirected towards the coffee station instead. Nicole poured what she knew was weak black coffee into her blue mug. Having filled it too close to the brim, Nicole held it with both hands to keep it from spilling over. She stared at the mug, making sure it stayed level as she slowly walked towards her desk, glancing down at the floor every few seconds so as not to trip on old hospital police case files strewn everywhere.

“Lonnie, I thought I told you to archive these –,” Nicole was cut off when she was suddenly overcome with a flash of blinding light and a strobing blue aura behind closed eyes. She could no longer hear her coworker give his obligatory excuses as to why he hadn’t cleaned up yet.

Nicole’s senses were bombarded with blue. She could see it and smell it. Nicole could taste the blue. The light behind her eyelids took shape. In that moment she heard a voice.

It was Wynonna. Except it wasn’t.

Or at least it wasn’t the same Wynonna that she had been careful to not disturb when she left their apartment this afternoon. She had still been sound asleep, her face smushed against the couch pillows as a pool of drool collected on the edge of the cushion under her dozing smirk. Nicole remembered having thought to herself, _aww, what an adorable psycho_ , as she had discreetly pulled out her phone to share an unconscious Wynonna Earp with all their friends on social media.

No. It was not that Wynonna.

This Wynonna was crying. And her voice was different. Softer, younger.

Much younger. The blue light took form. It morphed into shapes, grainy at first but becoming more and more solid as blue light flooded together. Nicole could see her now. Them. Nicole could see two girls wrestling over something in a kitchen that looked familiar.

“Nicole, give it back! I found it first!” A six-year-old Wynonna Earp was wiping tears of frustration from beneath her eyes with one hand while reaching for the other girl’s arm with the other.

“You did NOT, it was in MY house,” a young Nicole Haught said, holding her arm high above her head still clutching the object tightly in her grasp, well out of a shorter Wynonna’s reach.

“Girls. You best stop this nonsense right this second. Do I need to call Nicole’s dad and have him pick her up?” Gus McCready was cross. She didn’t even look at them when she made her expectations known. Just shook her head and stayed facing her kitchen sink while she folded soft butter into mashed potatoes in a mixing bowl. She had less grey hair than Nicole could remember from the last time she had seen her. _Crap. When was that? Easter?_

If Nicole had been able to make a facial expression or do anything at all for that matter besides just stand there, she would have cocked her head to the side and scrunched her brow to remember. But Adult Nicole couldn’t move. She just stood, frozen, like a statue. In Gus McCready’s old sunlit kitchen. She tried to speak. She couldn’t. She tried to wrinkle her eyebrows in panic. Nothing. The two girls relaxed a bit and walked right past her, closer to Gus at the sink, not batting an eye.

They couldn’t see her. _What the fuck._

“You can’t call her dad yet, we haven’t eaten dinner!” Wynonna said expressively. Wynonna’s wild gesturing distracted Nicole enough for the other girl to make her move. She batted Nicole’s hand and a shiny small object shot to the floor, making a metallic clink upon contact. Wynonna snatched it up. Adult Nicole could see it now, reflecting in the sunlight pouring through the kitchen window. A glimmering rock painted prismatic rainbow beams onto Young Nicole’s face. She could finally make out a ruby red stone set in what Adult Nicole considered to be a _very_ fugly band.

Gus sharply turned to her niece.

“Wy, give her the ring.” There was no mistaking the severity in her voice.

Wynonna didn’t try to argue. She gave an angry “FINE.”

Gus put the bowl down and picked up her tea that had been cooling off on the counter. Wynonna chucked the ring in a childish rage across the room, “There, Nicole, you can have it!” and started to run out of the room, but not before being trapped in her aunt’s gaze. Gus had made a quick turn of her body to give Wynonna an expression of _that was a bad move, girl_ , but overcalculated and spilled her hot tea onto her hands. The mug crashed to the floor, and suddenly Nicole was staring at her own feet covered in weak black coffee.

“Nicole, you’re getting that everywhere. Maybe don’t fill it up so high next time?” Lonnie said, thinking he was being funny. He wasn’t.

She could move again. She could smell the musty stench of old files. She could hear the footsteps of doctors and nurses rushing by outside their office door. The blue shapes behind her eyes had disappeared just as quickly as they had taken form. She still held her coffee mug, but it was shaking in her hands, liquid running over the edges. Her whole body was shaking. The panic in her veins was finally released into her environment but she found herself unable to move or say a word. Not because she couldn’t, but because she was scared shitless.

_What the hell was that?_

Before she had time to comprehend what she had just happened, the door next to her swung open.

“Haught, just got a call from the fourth floor. Suspicious individual. Take Lonnie.” Nedley didn’t wait for a response before impatiently closing himself in his office. _Hi, to you too._

Lonnie stood and grabbed a rag sitting near the coffee maker. He threw it at Nicole who moved for the first time to catch it. She looked at him with a _what do you expect me to do with this_ face and he raised his eyebrows and pointed to her feet. _Oh._

Nicole absentmindedly dropped the rag and let it soak up the coffee. They left the office and took the elevator to the fourth floor. She knew at this point in her career that losing focus while in the field because of personal issues would be, not only humiliating, but dangerous for herself and the people she intended on protecting. And Nicole Haught didn’t make mistakes. She drew in a deep breath and exhaled, acutely aware of the pace of her heartbeat. It was still thrumming in her ears.

She ran her fingers through her red hair and pushed open the double doors.

It wasn’t necessary for the first nurse she encountered in the psych ward to tell her “he’s back,” for Nicole to know she was about to find the same man from the other day standing outside Room 42. Nicole walked towards him in the dimly lit hallway, assessing the steady gaze he directed towards patient 42’s door. He seemed unaware of the healthcare workers giving him commands to move and leave the unit. He barely noticed when a patient transporter accidentally ran the wheel of a gurney over his right foot. The man seemed to be only focused on one thing. That door. He just stood, two feet between him and the room, gently swaying, lulled into a trance by the cacophony of call-bell lights ringing and the sudden resounding intercom signal of a Code Blue taking place in the opposite wing of the hospital.

Nicole instinctively turned her head towards the double doors, the urgency of the moment effectively stuffing her leftover inner-turmoil neatly into an imaginary trunk her brain had aptly labeled “for later.”

“Lonnie, go!” Nicole confidently signaled for him to go attend to the emergency. “I’ve got this.”

_I swear, I’ve got you._

 

 

 

That voice echoed again, this time loud with authority and tangible confidence, knocking her onto the heels of unsteady feet. _Jesus, Nicole, hold it together._

“You okay, Haught? You look a little—pale.” Nicole looked to Lonnie, her eyes were wide, lips falling slightly open, as if almost to ask Lonnie, ‘ _did you hear that?’_ She knew he didn’t, so she closed her mouth and tried to refocus.

“I’m fine.” Her response was short, as if she was trying to convince herself she was in fact okay. “Go. Now.”

Lonnie went out the doors.

Nicole turned back to the man still serenely swaying to the rhythm of the hospital sounds. She walked towards him, her right hand settled in a ready position on her holstered piece. But before she could make her presence known, he turned his whole body, slightly tilting his head at her and spoke.

“Don’t be scared. He’s going to save us all.”

Nicole started laughing and shook her head. “Okay, I have had it up to HERE, with this wacky-ass day,” she gestured wildly, flailing her hand above her head, denoting where she estimated ‘here’ to be. “Sir, I’m going to need you to come with me. I’m calling the Calgary police.” She started towards him again. “I don’t even know how you’ve been getting on the unit. Those doors behind me? Yeah, they’re locked. And you see that person right there?” She pointed to a man sitting at the desk near the door. “His entire job, all day, is to watch who comes in and out. And he says he hasn't seen you go through those doors once. So how in the hell are you getting in? Through a window? A trap-door? A leprechaun’s rainbow?”

“I don’t need a door,” he said. As he spoke, she noticed for the first time that his teeth were sharp and pointed, as if he had filed each one down individually to look more menacing. “But she does.”

Nicole looked into his eyes, her curiosity piqued. “Who does?”

The man laughed knowingly, “You’re about to find out.”

Nicole was seething. “Okay, enough of this.” She closed the distance between them and reached out to grab his arm. Just as she wrapped her fingers around his ice-cold bicep, another blue flash took hold behind her brown eyes. She was no longer standing on the fourth-floor psych unit of Calgary General. She was no longer enveloped in the sounds of hospital sneakers and rolling stretchers. She could no longer smell the scent of disinfectant and attempted sterility.

The blue lights stuttered and danced in a hazy static until they came together in familiar shapes. This time Nicole wasn’t just watching the scene before her. This time Nicole was a passenger. An actor in a memory. She was acutely aware that it was a memory she had strangely forgotten. A memory where she had died. It was a moment in time that she had lived in another life, maybe. But she was unable to change course. Unable to do anything but see the scene play out. The oddest part? She didn’t want out. Something delicious drew her in and showed her an eagerness within herself that she assumed was always there.

She couldn’t completely see, the blue tones too strong to be overcome by other colors. But the shapes were well-defined. Human forms filled in with blue shadowed static. And the sounds were petrifying. Men and women yelling. Dozens of them. Banging and clamoring against wooden doors. She knew that if the angry people outside entered, she would die. Not just her. There were two other people in the room. One was a woman made of blue static. She was holding Nicole’s hand, tightly. Nicole felt nothing but warmth travel through her from the point where the woman held her. They were going to die. They needed a way out. The woman spoke in the most angelic voice she had ever heard.

“Dying might be our only chance of living. Who’s in?” Her voice wasn’t the sound of blue. It was silk. It was violet and green and filled with a warm sweetness that reached out to Nicole and gripped itself around her throat.

The sweetness squeezed tightly, forcing out words that meant more to her than anything she had ever said in this lifetime, a lifetime she couldn’t remember. They meant more to Nicole than anything she had ever said in any lifetime.

“Where you go, I go."

“For Wynonna.”

Nicole nodded in solemn agreement. “For Wynonna.”

Nicole tried to hold on, she tried to hold the memory close to her body, but the static widened. It opened up and evaporated before she could permanently embed into her memory what she had seen. She felt the familiar warmth of the woman’s hand disappear and was left cold and alone, standing on the fourth floor of Calgary General Hospital.

She wasn’t sure when it had started. Whether it was before she had returned to the psych ward. But Nicole Haught was crying. Hot streams of salty tears rolled down her face while her racing heart screamed. She couldn’t remember the memory she had just experienced. The frustration was overwhelming.

The man with the pointy teeth removed himself from Nicole’s grasp. He took one step backwards, then spoke.

“She’s on her way.”

And with that, his eyes turned a violent red and he vanished into thin air with a loud crack, right before the Officer’s eyes. Nicole was alone. Warm water dripped to the floor, pooling itself in a puddle that held everything she could not remember.

She looked at it, trying hard to find meaning in the tears. She tried to discern from the reflective pool what she had lost.

Instead, she only saw herself staring back, fiery red hair and hollow eyes she didn’t recognize.

Nicole looked up and saw that the door to Room 42 was slightly ajar. Curiosity propelled her forward. She lightly pushed the door open with shaky hands, unsure of what she would find lying in the dark. Who she would find.

But she wasn’t scared of what lay beyond.

As she tiptoed through the black threshold of Room 42, the only thing that painted the worried look on Nicole Haught’s face, was the singular fear that she would find nothing at all.


	4. the more things change...

In an almost sing-song melody, he spoke in the darkness, drawing out each word with menacing intent.

“You, you do not belong here.” He clicked his top and bottom teeth together, biting the words out with violent delight.

“Yeah, y’all keep sayin’ that.” Nicole rolled her eyes, looking up at a ceiling she could only assume was there. The light from the hallway was streaming through the crack under the door, not enough to illuminate anything more than a few square feet of the hospital room floor beneath her.

Nicole had closed herself in the room with the patient. Somehow, she knew this needed to be a private conversation. She wasn’t sure what had drawn her in, but she couldn’t help but feel this man had something to do with the one that had vanished before her eyes in the hallway not minutes before.

Their dialogue was set to the rhythm of a man snoring in a chair at the bedside. He was young. Her age. Good-looking and stoic, even in slumber. His sharp suit was accentuated by bulky muscles threatening to pop the seams. His short, black, military buzz neatly cropping a handsome face.

“So, uh, what did you do to get these?” She kicked her boot to the bed frame, gesturing towards the knotted straps. “Kinky.”

The patient was lying in the dark, leather restraints strapping down each limb to the frame of the bed. The only part of his body he could move was his neck. Three narrow strips of light that were divided through slits in the window-shades floated on the side of his face, revealing an unkempt beard with distinctive white patches and a scar bisecting his right eyebrow.

“Shhhhhh, you’ll wake the babyyy,” the man in the bed said, letting the yyy draw out gratuitously.

Nicole looked back to the man in the chair. She noticed for the first time a gun concealed under his suit jacket.

“Who’s he?” she asked.

“Babysitter.” He smiled, proud. It widened in the fissured light. “I, uh, bit off an orderly’s ear.” Molars cracked down as he lurched forward like a rabid animal.

“Aww, did he steal your applesauce?” She didn’t know what had gotten into her. She was normally professional and kind to patients, no matter how they behaved towards her. She was there to protect them all. Not just the nonviolent ones. But this man. He seemed different. She felt like she knew him. She held a strange animosity towards him. She was glad he was immobilized.

“Pudding, actually.”

Her eyebrows went up. _Jesus. He’s not kidding._ She looked back to the man in the chair. She had the distinct feeling he wasn’t keeping guard just because a patient got violent. Not with that suit.

In that moment Nicole heard a voice, a sweet voice, whisper inside her head. The voice was crying, having lost someone important.

 

 

 

_Because he’s gone Wynonna, he’s gone._

Nicole furrowed her brow, eyeing the sleeping man in the chair. A wave a grief washed over her as she watched his chest rise and fall.

“But you didn’t come in here to talk about snacks, did you, Officer?” He said, mildly amused. It was clear he knew exactly why she was there.

Nicole approached the bed. “That man, your—friend,” Nicole pointed towards the hallway, and continued, “he is your friend, isn’t he? How did he—,” she didn’t know how to finish the sentence. She still didn’t know if she could trust her eyes. Trust what they had seen.

“How did he, disappear?” He finished it for her. “He didn’t.”

He cut her off before she could ask what he meant.

“You see Nicole, I know you. We’re the same, you and I.” He gestured with his head for her to come closer. She was apprehensive so say the least, especially at the mention of her name, a name she had not given. She went to him. Crouched at his bedside opposite the man in the chair. She figured it would be wise not to wake the man.

They whispered out of earshot, the man in the suit shifting in his seat only once.

“I’ve seen you. Seen you in action. The strong deputy. Always in control. Protect and serve. Right? But there’s something in you. Something dark, waiting to be let out. The same thing that’s in me, it’s in you. And there is absolutely nothing you can do about it…,” he chuckled at this.

A deep anger raged inside her chest. She was only inches from his face. She was worried not about what he might do to her, but what she might do to him.

“You want to know what’s funny? You’ve never been more out of your element. And it’s going to kill you. But don’t worry. She’s coming for you. She’s coming for all of us.”

Her heart pulsated wildly. Jumping at the mention of this—woman.

Her voice, shaky with desperation, sputtered out the next sentence with an eagerness that she couldn’t control. “Who—who is she?” The man that vanished had mentioned her too. This couldn’t be a coincidence.

“Oh. You don’t remember?” he laughed out loud this time, almost waking the man in the chair.

Nicole was fuming. “No, I don’t remember.” She was on the verge of tears. Her face was getting hot. Droplets threatening to start again. The anger at the man was turning to frustration. Frustration at this clown that taunted her. Frustration at her own feeling of hopelessness and loss. Her loss. Something essential. She was reaching for it. But it kept moving. Always in constant motion. It never stayed still long enough for her to wrap her fingers around it. It was a voice that kept changing in frequency, one she knew she had heard before, but speaking inside her head in an ever-changing pitch.

He laughed. “Look at you! You’re scared to death.”

That voice again.

 

 

 

_I scare you?_

 

 

 

“I keep trying, but every time, it slips,” she corrected herself, “She slips.” She looked down to the floor. Tears finally flooded at her feet. “She’s important. Isn’t she?” She didn’t look to him for an answer. She knew the answer. Her racing heart told her all she needed to know.

“Oh, I think so,” he whispered.

Nicole needed to leave this room. She needed to get out. She needed to breathe. But first. She had one more question.

“Where is she?” Nicole looked right into the man’s eyes, red strands of hair sticking to hot tears on her cheeks. She knew, somehow, that he would answer her honestly.

“She’s trapped.”

Her heart jumped in remembrance.

“Where?” Nicole was raising her voice, urgency setting in.

He furrowed his brow, considering how he would answer her question. He decided, and gave a weak smile, proud at his own cleverness. “Oh, my dear, Nicole…,” his eyes locking on to hers, “You left her stranded in the beginning.”

“What do you mean? What does that mean?” She was startling herself. Why did she care so much? Her own agitation was making her so, insanely, frustrated.

He closed his eyes, that evil smirk still resting across his face, “I’m tired. No more questions.”

She did everything she could to hold herself back from throttling him, then and there. The slight shuffle of the sleeping man in black kept her in check.

“I’m not done with you.” It came out as a promise. She stood, getting ready to leave. She knew she couldn’t continue questioning this, this _jackass_ with that man in here. She would have to come back.

She walked back into the bustling hallway, slamming the door behind her.

“Well she was pissed. What did you do to that one, Bobo?” The man in the chair rubbed sleep out of his eyes.

Bobo Del Rey was exhausted from these incessant questions. He rolled his eyes. “Go back to sleep, Xavier. That is my business, not yours.”

They sat in silence. Neither man had any desire to share space with the other. But they had no choice. Out of boredom more than anything, Deputy Marshall Dolls fell back into an undisturbed slumber. The other man—the revenant, quickly followed suit.

 

* * *

 

                                Wy 

 

4:01 PM:   hey

             

                                      4:01 PM:     What’s up?

 

4:03 PM:   your cat pooped on my pillow

                                       

                                       4:04 PM:     …….

 

4:04 PM:   not joking

 

                                       4:06 PM:      Crap.

 

4:07 PM: yes, crap indeed.

 

                                       4:07 PM:      Very funny, Wynonna.

 

4:08 PM: hey, i have a joke for you

 

                                       4:08 PM:      Not now, I’m dealing

                                                           with something.

                                                         

4:09 PM: what do you call a lesbian dinosaur?

 

4:10 PM: guess

 

                                        4:11 PM: no

 

4:11 PM: guess

 

                                        4:12 PM: no

 

4:13 PM: guess

 

4:20 PM: ok I'll tell you

 

4:20 PM: “Lick-alotta-puss”

 

                                        4:23 PM: enough wynonna

 

4:30 PM: jeez what crawled up your butt

 

4:41 PM: get in a fight with Nedley again?

 

4:42 PM: I know he’s like practically your

dad and all, but like, he should keep that

stuff for when you guys are off the clock.

Is that it? Was it a fight?

 

5:03 PM: ??????????

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Heyyyy buddy, whatcha doin?” Wynonna was speaking in a baby voice, as if her roommate was a dumb puppy.

“Gotta clean. This place is a mess.” 

Nicole was sitting in the middle of the kitchen, frantically wiping the floor with a toothbrush. Scrubbing at a speed that was unnatural. Wynonna stared at her, standing in the threshold of the front door. She had just walked in and found her roommate like this. Weird. Nicole’s long legs were stretched out in front of her, spread wide, forming a triangle. She was leaning on her left elbow, scrubbing with her right hand.

“Wow. This place is…um—I could eat off this floor,” Wynonna quipped. “Dude. I thought they only cleaned with toothbrushes like that, in like, prison movies. Ya know, for the melodrama?”

Nicole didn’t respond. Her eyes stayed fixed on the floor beneath her. She was leaning into it, her nose practically touching the end of the toothbrush as she moved it back and forth against a red wine stain.

She kept cleaning. Kept scrubbing. Doing anything she could do to keep her mind off of—.

No. She couldn’t go there.  She had to clean. That’s what was important. The apartment was filthy. She had to clean.

Wynonna could clearly tell something was wrong. “Dude?”

Nicole didn’t look up. “Bristles are good. For the dirt.”

“Uh huh?” Wynonna walked over to her friend. She sat down next to her and put her hand on her shoulder. “Nicole.”

“This stain. It won’t come out.”

“Nicole.”

“It won’t come out.” Tears fell on her hand. They dripped down on to the stain that she was desperately trying to remove. Salty water was polished into the floor by rapid movements of her arm. “Why won’t it come out?” She finally looked up to Wynonna. “I can’t get it out…” Her eyes were wide with fear and pooled with new tears.

Wynonna said the only thing she could think to say in a moment like this.

“I know, babygirl. It’s okay.” She put her hand on top of Nicole’s, stopping the movement of the brush. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

They sat like that for a while. Nicole eventually leaned into Wynonna’s lap, tears soaking into her friend’s right thigh. Her head throbbed. Throbbed from crying, and from the realization that everything she had always known was about to change.

Everything.


	5. waverly earp, girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> here it is... the chapter you've been waiting for. feedback always appreciated! Enjoy :)

 

Waverly Earp sprinted through the cascading branches of the willow tree, batting them aside as she cleared her path. She disguised her body behind the thick trunk of it, sticking her head out to the side to see if they had spotted her. She wasn’t ready, but she had no choice. She had to send it. She had to do it now. They were coming. She couldn’t stop them. She couldn’t hide here any longer.

She whispered to herself, “I’m coming, Nicole.” She had said it to be serious, to ready herself for the jump, but the second Waverly uttered the words out loud, she couldn’t help but giggle. _Okay,_ _I have been spending way too much time with Wynonna._

She held Bulshar’s ring tightly in her hand, remembering the last conversation she had had with Nicole. She had been heartbroken when the redhead gave the ring back to her. Before all this. But she was so grateful she had it now. Something to hold on to.

She heard branches crunch under feet nearby. _Okay, Waves, it’s now or never._ She started running again. Faster than ever. She was running to Nicole. Hoping her love would know what to do. She was her only chance. Her only way out. Waverly knew she had done all she could. As her feet dashed under her, she desperately wished her plan would be full-proof enough to work. To see Nicole again. To hug her sister tight. To put the world right, the way it was supposed to be.

She remembered back to the last time she had seen Wynonna. The last time she had seen anyone. It was painful to think about. Remembering that kind of fear, the uncertainty of what she would find as she was being pulled in. It was hard, but she would never let herself forget. It was what pushed her forward. It was what motivated her through all of this.

 

_Listen, can you tell Nicole—_

_YOU tell her!_

She slid to a stop, digging her heals into the dirt at the edge of the ravine, keeping herself from going over.

She stood there, looking into the gorge, water flowing one hundred feet below the cliff’s edge. She could feel the wind on her face, flowing through her long brown hair. She could hear the thrashing of a violent river below the walls of the canyon. She turned her head back to Paradise for one last look. Then Waverly Earp held her breath and faced the water.

“Ok, baby, I did my part. The rest is up to you.” She held the red stone to her lips, kissing it one last time before chucking it far out. Out into the middle of the wide-open space, high above the chasm below. It glimmered as it traveled through the air, the blue in the sky dancing off the ruby in the ring. She watched it soar. Watched it tumble and roll, gaining height. Before it could start its descent, before it could start careening down down down into the deep crevasse, it flashed in a blue strobe. Waverly Earp watched as the only thing that had made her feel safe, the only object that had given her the strength to go on, her only possession during her time stranded in this wild place—she watched as it disappeared from Eden.

For the first time in weeks, Waverly Earp felt truly alone.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Hey, how are you doin’?” Wynonna poked her head in the crack in Nicole’s bedroom door.

No response. She pushed the door open and walked in. Nicole was curled up in her bed under four or five blankets, fast asleep. She was snoring like a freight train. _Good._ Wynonna knew that her roommate needed real sleep. She had been up all night saying some—odd things. It had been a long time since she had seen Nicole like this. Not since she was a kid. Not since Jack.

She had thought about calling Nedley, but she knew Nicole would be pissed as all hell if she had done that. He would know what to do, but she wanted to give her friend a chance to sort things out for herself before it came to that.

She had to meet with that Agent anyway. The one from the hospital. She was consulting on a case with Jeremy, and she didn’t want to be late. She hated keeping this from Nicole, especially since it was an investigation taking place at Calgary General, right under her roommate’s nose. But she knew that when it came to her PI cases, it was best to stay discreet. Nicole never asked questions about her work. It was an unspoken agreement. They didn’t talk about it.

She was still hovering over Nicole. All she wanted was to protect her. She had done so much for her through the years, and all she wanted was to return the favor. She felt Calamity Jane rub against her ankles. She must have ninja-sneaked in through the crack in the door.

“Oh, don’t think I’m not still pissed at you,” she whispered to the cat. “You disgust me.” She leaned down and picked her up, the animal shrinking away at Wynonna’s touch, but relaxing when she was set on Nicole’s bed. Wynonna nudged her closer to Nicole, stroking Calamity Jane until she was calm enough to curl up next to her sleeping owner. She purred in her pale face. Nicole sleepily lifted her arm and unconsciously wrapped it around the ginger fluffball. Wynonna smiled to herself. _Cute. You two are gonna make me puke._

She walked out of the room and closed the door gently. She needed to get a move on if she wanted to make her meeting. The front door rattled with what she could only assume was Jeremy Chetri’s rhythmic knocks.

She swung it open.

“Hey, ready?”

“Yeah, do you have any idea what this one is going to entail?” She asked this while throwing her phone and wallet in her jacket pockets. “I don’t want to change my shoes, but if we’re going to need to be—mobile—I want to be prepared.” She looked down to her boots, admiring her own fashionable choice. _I love vanity._

“Nah, I think this is just going to be a quick introduction to the case, he said he’s going to share the file with us and then he has to get back to something.” He peeked his head inside the apartment, “Is Nicole at work?” He really didn’t feel like running into her there. Wynonna didn’t seem worried about it, but he knew he was bad at keeping secrets. He didn’t even know if it was really a secret. That was part of the problem.

“No, she’s here. Sleeping.”

“But it’s, like, the middle of the day. Doesn’t she usually go, I don’t know, climbing in Banff on her days off or something?”

“Not today. Let’s go.”

Jeremy could detect the crispness of Wynonna’s response. He thought it best to leave alone. He knew better than to get in the middle of Nicole and Wynonna’s—stuff.

Their walk to the hospital was short. They briefly went over what they knew about the case, which was very little. They met in the hospital cafeteria. Deputy Marshall Dolls was sitting in a secluded booth in the corner of the hall. He waved them over.

Wynonna chuckled when she looked him over as they crossed the room. She eyed his regulation Ray Bans, shaking her head at the way the stranger was methodically cutting his salad leaves.

She leaned into Jeremy before they were in earshot of the Agent, “Is this joker for real? Who dresses like _that_?”

“As real as you and me,” Jeremy laughed.

Wynonna looked back to the booth. An ice-cold draft rushed through her, through her bones.

 

 

 

 

 

_He hates the woods. I’m not leaving him here, alone._

She quickly glanced to her partner.

“Did you hear that, Jer?” She said, concern washing over her. She suddenly felt sad. Like she might collapse and start writhing with an unspeakable grief that she couldn’t explain.

It was those eyes. As she approached this man’s booth, a blue-cold soaked deep down. She peered into his eyes and felt an emptiness. A dark void she would never be able to fill.

“Yeah,” Jeremy pointed to a doctor’s pager buzzing loudly on a counter nearby, “Not sure who it belongs to.”

 _Not what I meant, dude._ Wynonna tucked away the voice. She had to put her game face on. Time to be all Earp-y and such.

“Mr. Dolls?” Wynonna said to the man.

“Agent,” he corrected, shaking her hand, then Jeremy’s and sat down opening a manila folder. “This is the _man_ I’m tracking.” He passed a photo to the opposite side of the table. Wynonna caught it before it slid off the edge.

_This sucker gets right down to it, doesn’t he?_

The man in the picture was balding. Razor sharp teeth glinting in the poor resolution of the image. He was being escorted out double doors of a hospital unit by _shit, that’s Nicole._ Keeping this from her roommate might prove more difficult than she thought. Hopefully she wouldn’t have to bring her into the fold. She knew she was dealing with more than her fair share right now. Not that she had any kind of grasp on what it was she was dealing with, but she didn’t want to overwhelm the cop. _Last resort._

“He’s been seen multiple times on the 4th floor. We don’t know how he’s getting in. The cameras aren’t showing us anything worthwhile.” His voice gets a little quieter now. “It’s almost like he—appears out of thin air.”

Wynonna laughed. It sounded to her like this dude really believed that.

“So, what’s his deal? He’s not a patient?” Wynonna was trying to understand.

“Not a patient, but we think he’s visiting one.” Dolls said this, not wanting to give away too much information to the private investigators.

“We?” Wynonna questioned. “What agency did you say you were from?” She suddenly realized she had no idea who he was affiliated with.

“I didn’t,” he said. He clearly had no intention to do so, other than adding, “We’re federal. If that helps. Look. You two came highly recommended. The Chief of Hospital Police praised your PI firm as a useful resource.”  

“Yep, he’s a family friend. Practically raised my bff.” Wynonna wasn’t sure why she was sharing this private information with a stranger.

“Bff?” Dolls stared at her blankly.

“You’re shitting me, right? Bff…best friend forever. FRIEEEEEND? F-R-I-E--,” she was interrupted by a sharp jab to the ribs. Jeremy extracted his arm from Wynonna’s side and looked back to the Agent.

“My point is, a certain level of discretion is necessary if you are going to work on this case. My associates and I can go elsewhere if that is a problem. I can’t tell you everything. The choice is yours.” Dolls of course, was banking on them taking the case. He had been personally assured. Just not by Randy Nedley.

Wynonna needed the money. And her and Jeremy needed the clout. Working a federal-level case like this could be a real boost to the status of their firm. After all the help Nicole had given her to get to where she was now, Wynonna wasn’t going to squander a golden opportunity like this.

“We’re in.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

When Nicole woke up, she was alone. The first thing she noticed was the ringing in her ears.

It was loud. So. Damn. Loud.

It drowned out the low purrs that Calamity Jane was releasing into the crook of her neck. She couldn’t hear anything at all, except that noise. It sounded like a jackhammer was being driven directly into her ear drums. It was painful too. She moved her hand to the side of her head to check if it was bleeding. It wasn’t.

She could barely open her eyes or use any of her other senses. Any time she did, it made the ringing even more intense. She didn’t know why, but Nicole felt as if she could control it if she focused her attention only on the shrill pitch and nothing else. She felt she could localize it. Only one thought occurred to her.

_Find the source._

She jolted awkwardly out of tangled sheets and forced on her uniform from the day before. She didn’t know how she did it, but eventually, Nicole was able to tie the laces of her boots with fumbling fingers.

The tone ran through her whole body, resonating in her bones and the floor beneath her. It was in her apartment, in Calamity Jane. She stumbled outside and knew that it was in the trees in front of her building, and it was pouring out of the sky. That blue, blue sky. It was everywhere. That pile-driving toll. She could not tell where she ended and it began. She had to find it. It was calling to her.

She knew she couldn’t drive. Not in this state. But she also knew that she had to get out of the city. The tone, it was sounding from far away. She’d have to find a way out. Nicole stumbled to the bus station, doing her best to keep her composure. It’s not every day you see a police officer look like this. Looking so—off. She shouldn’t have put her uniform on. She knew that. Nicole knew that she should never wear it when she’s off-duty. But something had taken over. Sense and logic only computed within the officer’s brain in regard to the simplest of tasks. It was as if the tone had carried her forward, disregarding all else.

Nicole Haught’s train of thought looked a little something like this:

 

 

_Clothes = Good_

_Bus = Good_

_Sit = Good_

_Don’t scream = Good_

 

She rode the bus heading Northwest, about 35 miles outside of Calgary towards a place called the Ghost River Triangle. She had never heard of it, but she knew its where the sound was taking her. As the miles went by, Nicole could feel herself ease out of her odd, tonally-induced fugue state. Her mind was clearing of the fog. The noise was dimming. She could still hear it. It still reverberated, showing her where she needed to go, but it wasn’t quite so painful now. The further the bus rode along that lonely highway, the colder the air became. Nicole had never been out this way before, so she wasn’t sure if they were gaining in altitude. Soon enough, however, she could see a wide expanse mushroom out before her. The land opened-up; rolling hills giving way to snow-capped mountains. But the snow wasn’t just on the mountains. The land was frosted over too. At first with a nipping top layer. Then with actual snow.

 _But it’s September_ , she wondered to herself. Sure, snow this time of year in Alberta wasn’t completely unheard of, but there were feet of snow that the bus’s shadow rode against on the side of the road. Multiple feet. _Damn._

The ringing had downgraded to an irritating buzz. Nicole finally realized what she had done. She had just high-tailed it out of the only city she’d ever known and was sitting on a dingy old bus going deeper into the middle of nowhere because of something she was sure could only have been in her mind. She started to panic a bit. The unsteadiness she felt scared her. The lack of control she had experienced was overwhelming. Something as simple as a noise had made her lose all sense of self. Had led her here. Wherever here was. Despite hating that feeling, the feeling that she had been carried away by something so elusive, she knew she couldn’t go back home until she found it. She had to see this through.

The bus rolled to a stop. She disembarked after learning that the next bus would be arriving every hour until 10pm. It was currently 4pm. She knew she couldn’t get stuck out here. She had no equipment. No tent, no emergency tools or gear. She would freeze to death if she did. She couldn’t miss the last bus. Everything in Nicole told her this was a bad idea. That it was a decision that went against all her training. But she also knew she was close. She could feel it. She could sense that hum getting quieter and quieter. This wouldn’t take long. And she had to know.

Nicole watched as the bus drove off, fumes from the tail pipe dancing into the sky. She looked to the north, and then to the south. There was no town here. Just empty space. A small bench was dug into loose dirt. A tiny plaque on the top plank of the bench read in unimportant letters:

 

_National Historic Marker:_

_Final Resting Place of Wyatt Earp: Lawman of the Old West – 1848-1881_

_Here lies Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp who died heroically in the famous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Per his wishes, his body was interred in this land. The lawman had made plans to settle in the Ghost River Triangle before his untimely death at the O.K. Corral. According to legend, the gambler and gunslinger referred to this region as “Purgatory,” and had made plans to erect a town by the same name in this very spot. The famous cowboy died young, however, before any such town could be established. Earp was survived by no known children._

 

Nicole looked around. She saw nothing but fields and blue sky surrounding her. She closed her eyes and listened. She listened for the low buzz that would lead her forward. Her feet started shuffling. She let the hum carry her into the ditch at the side of the road and she started hiking up the hill.

She walked like that for two miles. Eyes closed, letting the imaginary thread of the tone pull her along. Eventually the could see the glimmering. The snow sparkled ahead, maybe twenty feet from where she stood, she could see it. As soon as the small shiny object glinted in the sun, she heard the ringing soften even more. That was it. It had to be.

She ran through the snow, using all her strength to pick up her legs high enough so that wouldn’t trip over herself. Nicole’s heart was pounding out of her chest. Before she reached the source of the glimmer, she slipped, falling head-first into a drifted pile of snow on top of the hill. She pushed herself up, hands numb. Her knees were dug into the powder. The metal object was within reach now. She could see what it was before her hand made contact. She could see that ruby stone shine against blue-white snow.

 _What in the hell?_ Nicole recognized it immediately. She hadn’t seen the ring in years, but she knew it was the same one. She knew because it was so damn ugly.

She reached her fingers out, knowing that the ringing in her head would disappear the second she touched the ring. And it did. What she hadn’t expected when her hand closed around the freezing-cold piece of jewelry, was that everything would disappear. That her world would turn to black.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Right where I left you,” Wynonna said a little too loudly. She placed hot tea on Nicole’s bedside table, knocking something metallic to the floor.

Nicole’s head was throbbing. “What? No, I actually—” She opened her eyes. She was lying on her bed, Calamity Jane purring against her. She was under her blankets, trying desperately to get warm. She was so cold. _Wait. Was it a dream?_ Nicole was so certain it had been real. That sound. Nothing from a dream could ever have been that loud. She shuffled her body. She still felt the constriction of her uniform. So, it was real. She couldn’t remember how she had gotten home. Nicole looked to her bedside table. It was 12 am. “Where have you been?” She asked Wynonna.

“Didn’t you get my texts? Was working a case.”

“No, was busy.” She pulled back her sheets.

Before Wynonna could see that she was fully clothed, she covered her eyes, “Dude, NO, my EYES!”

“Wynonna, please. You are so dramatic,” she revealed to her friend she was in full uniform.

“Didn’t know you sleep in that thing.”

“I don’t usually.” Nicole shook out her hair. It was still a little wet.

“Ok, well I’m gonna make some popcorn. Want to watch a movie?”

“Uh, sure. I’ll be out in a minute.”

“Cool” Wynonna started for the door. Before leaving the room, she turned her head and said, “But I’m choosing. I can’t deal with you putting on The Revenant one more time.”

“Okay, Wynonna.” She shook her head. God, she was still so cold. She moved to sit on the edge of the bed. She tried to remember how she had gotten here. The last thing she remembered was— _the ring._ Nicole started scanning her immediate environment. She looked to the bedside, the tea, then the floor. _There._ Nicole crawled onto all fours. Her heart was racing. Why had she lost consciousness when she touched it? Would it happen again? At least she was safe this time. No risk of freezing to death in here. It wasn’t like Calamity Jane was going to purr her to death.

Nicole reached out and picked it up. No darkness. She held it for a second. Rolled it around. It was definitely the same ring. The one from her childhood. She tried to remember the last time she had seen it. For some reason, that didn’t seem too important right now. She felt an urge.

_Just…maybe._

_If I—_

Nicole Haught made the choice. She held the ring by her right pointer finger and thumb and slipped it on her left ring finger. Perfect fit. A voice.

 

 

 

_Because I do. I do, Nicole Rayleigh Haught. I really really love you._

 

The apartment shook. A loud noise, like an airplane taking flight. Lightning struck. A scream in the living room.

“Wynonna!” Nicole shouted. She ran to the other room, heart still pumping wildly, her whole body alive.

“Um, Nicole?” Wynonna was kneeling on the floor next to the couch. Tears streaming down her face. “She, she’s not breathing.”

“Who—,” Nicole wanted to go back to her room. Lock the door. To breathe. Because she couldn’t either. Oxygen wasn’t making it into her lungs. Next to a panicked Wynonna, who had just seen something crash—out of a blinding blue light that had opened-up in the middle of the room—to their living room floor, was a woman. A beautiful woman. Nicole could see that she was wearing pink pants covered in matted dirt and her long brown hair was disheveled, strewn on the floor. But she was beautiful.

“Nicole, do something! Help! Please!” Wynonna was tilting the woman’s head back, getting her ready for CPR.

“No! Compressions first. Start compressions! Now Wynonna!” Nicole’s instincts kicked in as she yelled to her roommate. She ran to her closet and retrieved a small bag. She clumsily ran back to the main living space, unzipping the red bag next to the woman. “Good, that’s perfect.” She watched for a second as Wynonna held her hands in the correct formation over the woman’s chest and pressed into her sternum over and over to a steady rhythm.

“Wy, where did she come from?” Nicole had every estimation that the answer would not make any sense. She knew it had something to do with the ringing noise from earlier. And… _the ring._ Her heart was still pounding. She felt sick to her stomach. She peered down to her hand, the ring was still there. Nicole confidently pulled a face mask out of her CPR kit and expertly set it over the woman’s nose and mouth, attaching the Ambu bag as she made a tight seal with a C shape of her fingers.

“Ok, stop. That was 30.” She pumped the bag twice. Slowly. Nicole leaned her own ear over the woman’s nose and mouth, praying she would feel or hear or see any signs of life. She couldn’t die. Whoever she was. She could not die. Not today. Not here. The woman started coughing. She was gasping for air, but her lungs were working on their own now.

“How long was she out, do you know?” Nicole asked.

“I don’t know, she was moving before you came into the room. So, I think just a few seconds.” Wynonna answered, still frantic. Nicole looked down and saw that her roommate was holding the woman’s hand.

“Ok, good. You started compressions right away. That’s good,” she assured her friend.

“It’s good?”

“Yes. Very.” Nicole took a breath. She could see the woman’s respirations were normalizing. Her pulse was strong. She was okay. _She’s okay._

“Who is she?” Nicole looked up to Wynonna. “Where, in the hell, did she come from?”

“Dude, fuck if I know. I swear, it was some Terminator kind of shit in here…” Wynonna looked down again. She stared at the woman’s face strangely.

Nicole couldn’t stop staring either. Her face. It looked—soft. She reached out, feeling an odd urge to push the hair out of the woman’s closed eyes. She rested her left hand lightly on warm skin, sliding brown hair towards her temple. She looked back to Wynonna. The two roommates were bewildered. They sat like that, staring, trying to find something to say to the other.

Suddenly, Nicole felt something warm wrap tightly around her hand. The hand that was resting in the woman’s hair. Nicole looked away from Wynonna, back to the woman’s face. Her eyes were open, blinking out tears. Her face was scrunching up, letting out emotions she had been holding in for weeks. She gripped Nicole’s hand with recognition. The redhead could see it in the girl’s eyes. She could see that she knew her.

“Nicole?” The girl said softly.

Nicole couldn’t breathe. Her chest was constricting. Her blood was halting in her veins. Where did the air go?

Wynonna looked up to Nicole, who’s face was plastered with shock at the mention of her name. Nicole’s heart lurched again. _What is—_

Wynonna spoke, “Ummm…do you two know each other?” Her heart was racing too.

Waverly Earp sat up, looking to her older sister. “Wynonna. You’ve got to be joking.”

“I’m sorry, do  _we_ know each other?”

Waverly stared into her sisters eyes, obviously hurt. What was happening? Why didn't they know her? Something was very very wrong.

“Nonna," she said affectionately. "It’s me. Your sister, Waverly? Did you hit your head?” Waverly looked her over, seeing no obvious signs of trauma.

Wynonna spoke again. “Anyone else feelin’ a little hot? Whew, I think I need to hurl, should I open a window?”

Wynonna looked back and forth between the other two women. She made eye contact with Waverly. She was…familiar. Something big was happening. Something major. She didn’t know what. But Wynonna Earp could tell it was big.

Nicole’s vision was going dark. She was hyperventilating. Her heart was ripping in her chest. She didn’t understand what was happening. “I can’t breathe…Wy…I—”

Wynonna looked to Nicole. She scooted closer to her. “It’s okay babygirl, just breathe. In through the nose. Out through the mouth.” Waverly watched as her sister took her girlfriend’s hand in hers.

Waverly sat there in shock. _Babygirl?_ She looked around. Where was she? This apartment looked lived in. Her heart jumped. Something is wrong. Tears started threatening to spill over. She tried to remember how long she had been gone. She couldn’t. She couldn’t remember. Where had she gone, after—?

She looked back to Nicole. She was convulsing with sobs, while Wynonna tried to calm her down. Waverly’s heart sunk at the sight. The rest would have to wait. Her girlfriend needed her. Waverly moved in closer, as if she had done it a thousand times, and took Nicole in her arms. Wynonna moved back, letting it happen in confusion. Confusion at the woman’s ability to instantly sooth her best friend. Confusion at her own willingness to move aside.

Waverly whispered in Nicole’s ear, “It’s okay, baby…it’s okay,” never letting go of her sister’s line of sight.

Wynonna Earp sat there. She sat and watched as this strange woman gently rocked her best friend to sleep in her arms, unsure of—well—just about everything.


	6. I think therefore I am

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ok so...I've decided to change tenses. I hope its not too distracting. It shouldn't be too bad because the first part of the chapter is a dream/memory, so it starts in the past tense (except the first few sentences before the dialogue starts). But I've decided to write the rest of the actual present narrative in present tense (unless the situation calls for it obviously) but I was having trouble and going back and forth for some reason, so hopefully this sounds better. Hope the transition is okay!

_A blue haze opens. There’s a girl on a bed._

_Another walking through a doorway. Misty blue fills in the space and the shapes of the people within it. The two faceless, child-sized bodies become more and more clear. Their faces fill in with shadows and highlights and the blue takes on more hues. More colors. The pink in their skin. The red in the hair of the girl on the bed. Colors set in but are held together by that blue undertone that never quite dissipates completely._

_“Hi, I brought you a get better card,” she said timidly, hesitating before walking in and handing it to the red-haired girl sitting on her Toy Story comforter. Wynonna had been in Nicole’s room before but the idea of being there for any other reason besides driving her Hot Wheels over her mini-furniture and planning wild-eyed pranks to play on their families and drawing up inventions that they would one day grow up to sell and become millionaires that travel to Timbuktu and Madagascar seemed, well,  just a little weird to her._

_Nicole was cross-legged at the foot of her bed, Sheriff Woody staring back at her from her comforter next to where she sat. Half his winking face looked up at Nicole while the other half was folded down over the edge of the bed, sideways, boring a hole into a 6-year-old Wynonna’s line of sight. The lopsided winking eye was directed towards the standing girl, as if the cartoon character was sharing an important secret only with her. A secret she was not allowed to give up, even to her best friend._

_“Thanks, Wynonna.” She opened the card, looked at the drawing of the two of them riding their bikes under a scratched out sun, and then placed it behind her on the bed._

_“What are you doing?” Wynonna asked, seeing her friend fumble with something in her lap._

_“Look, I can make it talk,” Nicole held out the floppy, cloth doll in her hands, a familiar cowboy-sheriff with flailing arms and a wry smile on his plastic face making a matching wink as the one still mid-wink on the bed._

_“How do you make him talk?” Wynonna said curiously. She looked at the toy as Nicole shook it slightly, making its dangling arms and legs wiggle in the air. Wynonna reached out and took the proffered doll. She didn’t have many toys. Wasn’t as familiar with their mechanics as Nicole was. Being an only child, Nicole figured Wynonna would be less likely to have to share her toys, but that didn’t make much of a difference when your only parent is Ward Earp. A man that always defaulted to giving his daughter spent bullet casings on her birthday each year. She wasn’t one to complain, though. She was proud of the small collection she was slowly building. The only time she ever sensed her home-life was a bit unorthodox was when she went to play at Nicole’s house. But even then, Nicole’s family wasn’t perfect. It was through being such close friends that Nicole Haught and Wynonna Earp came to understand at such a young age, that families came in all sorts of shapes and iterations._

_“Take that ring,” Nicole pointed with her left index finger at the back of the doll. “And then you pull it.”_

_Wynonna turns the sheriff over and puts her finger through the white ring attached in the middle of the doll’s back. A wide grin plasters over her face in wonder as she extends her arm out, pulling the string away from the little cloth body._

_“Someone’s poisoned the water hole!” Says a tinny drawl that fills Nicole’s bedroom. The two girls giggle loudly as they pass Woody back and forth and elicit a new phrase each time. They eventually start hearing the same recycled phrases and lay the doll back on the bed._

_“Hey, maybe he’s talking about the stream you drank from?” Wynonna said in a fit of laughter. Nicole keels over on her bed, unable to hold in her giggles. Just as their laughter subsides, Nicole’s mother appears in the doorway._

_“Nicole, you need to keep it down. Your brother is taking his nap,” she says before turning around and closing the door on them sternly._

_Wynonna turns back to Nicole. “Well she’s in a mood.”_

_Nicole knows to laugh because Wynonna usually says silly things about adults, but she also crinkles her eyebrow in curiosity. “What does that mean?” She giggles again and then waits for her answer._

_Wynonna shrugs and smiles. “I don’t know. My daddy always says it about my aunt Gus when she’s angry about somethin’.” They giggle some more before Wynonna continues. “Is that new?” She points back to the Woody doll that is now sprawled across the Woody face on the comforter._

_“Yeah. My momma said I could get one new toy for being sick.”_

_“It’s cool,” says Wynonna. She would normally be jealous that her friend got a toy for just being sick, when Wynonna was hard-pressed to get one for even being born. But not today. She felt too guilty as it was, and sure as heck wasn’t going to be anything other than happy that her best friend got something that hopefully made her feel a bit better. After all, it was her fault that Nicole got sick from drinking that water. The signs all said not to. And Wynonna knew that she should have done it instead. She kept thinking to herself that it should have been her. Not Nicole. It should have been her._

_“She had the Cinderella Barbie all picked out at first. But I wanted the talking Woody. She wouldn’t let me get it. Said I needed to choose a toy for a girl.” Nicole looked down at the doll again._

_Wynonna nodded along, finding the story fascinating._

_“But I said that I needed it to match my bed. See it matches!” Nicole lifts the doll and points at Woody then sets it back down._

_Wynonna smiles again, before it fades from her face at the realization that Woody was still staring at her. Not only that, but the doll’s head was angled just right so that now both Sheriffs were looking right at her, collaboratively winking that secret through the air._

_“But then I wouldn’t stop crying and I think she got it just to make me stop.” Nicole laughed mischievously. Wynonna returned the laugh._

_“I wish that worked on my daddy. But it just makes him angrier.” Wynonna laughed as she folded her hands over in each other, knowing it wasn’t something that warranted a laugh. Not in the slightest. Nicole didn’t laugh at all._

_In that moment the 6-year-old Nicole wondered, not for the first time, if Wynonna had ever seen her stare at the secret that hung between them. She wondered if Wynonna had ever picked up on the glances she would chance, to see if she still had those black and blue splotches sporadically painting the Earp girl’s ribs. Sometimes she caught a glimpse when they changed into their pjs during a sleepover. Sometimes it was when they would jump up and down on her bed and her shirt would ride up and reveal the multicolored spots right under the hemline. She wondered if Wynonna had ever caught the redhead stare at the circular bands of yellow-brown that were often hidden under a mickey mouse watch she wore on her right wrist. Nicole didn’t feel guilty for looking. She knew what they were. She knew how angry Wynonna’s daddy got. She had seen it accidentally one time. But Wynonna didn’t know._

_Nicole didn’t understand it. Didn’t get how her daddy could do something like that. She felt weird that she knew this secret about her friend. But she never felt guilty for looking. Wynonna was her best friend. Checking for the spots was her way of keeping track. She thought if she knew if he was hitting her again, maybe she could do something about it. Protect her somehow. She knew she was just a girl, but the anger and rage that gurgled under the surface in seeing those bruises made her feel older. Like she had some responsibility to take care of Wynonna. Especially since Wynonna only had her._

_Despite all this, Nicole had never mentioned it to Wynonna. Mostly because Wynonna had never mentioned it to Nicole. She didn’t want to embarrass her._

_Nicole had told her own dad about Ward Earp. She tried to at least. He always brushed her off. Either he didn’t believe her—Nicole, after all, was a stubborn child, an imaginative child—or he didn’t want to. He would say that the Earp’s were a rowdy bunch. That the girl had probably wrestled with a wild dog or something._

_It took a lot to make Paul Haught look up from his newspaper at the end of the day. He would sit in his squeaky, leather chair that he loved more than his children. Sit by that crackling fireplace in his office, an office Nicole really wasn’t allowed in. She would plead and cry and tell him her friend needed help, his help. But he was never the type to get involved in other people’s business. No. That isn’t what Haught’s do. It’s better to mind ourselves and not meddle, he would say. Yes. That’s the way, he would say. Of course, before the end of any of these encounters, Paul Haught would always politely ask Nicole to close the office door on her way out. He was nothing if not cordial._

_Nicole had thought about telling Wynonna’s aunt, Gus. But she didn’t have her number. She wasn’t allowed to use the phone anyway, unless it was an emergency. And was this an emergency? She wasn't sure. She wasn’t even sure what she would say. Would Gus even believe her? Maybe Gus already knew? And if Wynonna found out Nicole had said anything. Well. The last time she accidentally told anyone one of Wynonna’s secrets it had been bad. Wynonna had refused to talk to her for three whole weeks at school. She had chosen complete solitude during snack and craft time over spending any time with Nicole. That had said a lot. Nicole didn’t want to break her confidence. What if she decided to finally tell her? She wanted to still be her friend, one that Wynonna felt comfortable enough to talk to, so that she could help her if she asked. She wanted Wynonna to make that choice._

_She knew they were both too young to be dealing with something like this. And it did make her scared. Scared because her friend was hurt. And scared because Wynonna seemed so used to it. Like it was normal. Like she deserved it for driving her mom away. Ward Earp had said that enough times for Wynonna to think it was true. ‘She wouldn’t have left if not for you,’ he would say. ‘You were too much for her. Just too damn much.'_

_Nicole wanted Wynonna to live with her. She wanted her parents to be Wynonna’s parents. But she knew that’s not how it worked. She knew that asking her dad something so absurd would only be answered with a “Make sure its all the way shut on your way out,” and that friendly nod of his that didn’t even require his eyes to be anywhere else but on the sports section of the Calgary Herald._

_No, there wasn’t much she could do, except going to Ward himself and taking him on with her little rage-filled fists. No. This was the situation. She would wait. Wait for Wynonna to come to her. And then hopefully they could figure it out together. She may have been a child, but the girl was smart. Sharp enough to plan and bright enough to know her limitations. And she knew her friend was strong. Strong enough to tell her the truth. She hated the idea of waiting. But she didn’t know what else to do. At that age, she hadn’t thought to go over her parents’ heads and take it to a policeman. That would have seemed like an odd idea, anyway, seeing as Ward Earp was the Captain of Police in the city’s 2 nd district. Policemen don’t go to jail, right? So, she would let it lie. She would wait for Wynonna to tell her. _

_“Want to go look at my brother?” Nicole said, hoping to break out of her own thoughts._

_“Ok.”_

_“Cool,” she said as she hopped off the bed, grabbing Wynonna’s hand while reaching out her other hand for the doorknob across the room. Before she turned it, she looked at her friend and said, “we can’t make any noise. My mom doesn’t it like it when I make noise near Jack.”_

_“Ok.”_

_They sauntered down the hall, Nicole dramatically bringing a finger to her lips in a hushing gesture. Even a 6-year-old Wynonna knew to roll her eyes._

_The door to Jack’s room was opened just a crack, enough that Nicole could just barely lean her shoulder into it to widen the gap, allowing the two girls to sneak in. They walked up to his crib and stared for a while. Nicole stood on the other side of it, against the wall with her back facing the window, while Wynonna stood opposite her. Nicole’s 3-year-old brother slept soundly, feather-thin red hair cascading over his forehead. He looked like he was floating on a blue cloud. Settled into that ever-familiar blue mist that adult-Nicole knew so well._

_“Wynonna don’t touch that,” Nicole said in a quick whisper, her gaze focused on Wynonna’s fingers that were inching just a little too close to the buttons on Jack’s IV infusion pump._

_Wynonna squeaked back, “Sorry,” retracting her hand slowly. “What does it do?”_

_Nicole shrugged. “My momma told me its medicine. That he needs it to keep sleeping here.”_

_“Where else would he sleep?” She scratched her head in confusion._

_“I don’t know,” Nicole scratched her head too. “Downstairs, I guess?”_

_“Huh,” Wynonna let out in curious acceptance. “What’s wrong with him?”_

_Nicole tries to remember what it was her dad had called it. “I think it’s uh, it’s a Luka-Keema.”_

_“What’s that?”_

_Nicole shakes her head and blinks. “Its like a bug that sleeps in your blood.”_

_“Why does it sleep there? Can’t it get out?”_

_“I don’t think so. I think it’s stuck.”_

_“Huh,” Wynonna said again, even more confused than the first time._

_He started fussing a bit, closed eyelids moving rapidly. Nicole had her hands curled around the crib wall on her side with her chin leaning on the edge, looking down as a dream gave him restless sleep. He opened his eyes. Nicole could see it in them and know that he was about to start crying for their momma, mostly likely, but Nicole was quick to push the hair out of his face and rub the backs of her little fingers back and forth on his forehead, calming him. She found his pacifier laying on its side by his head and picked it up by the plastic ring on the back of it. She gave it to him, letting his tiny fingers wrap around the ring, nearly smiling at her as he put it in his mouth. He immediately dozed off._

_“That was clo—,” Wynonna started saying before she turned around quickly to see Nicole’s mom standing in the doorway._

_“You two. Out. Now.” Her arms were crossed, a pinched look on her face._

_Wynonna slipped out quickly and went back to Nicole’s room. Before Nicole could make it there herself, her mom put her hand on her shoulder while they both stood in the threshold._

_“Nicole, I told you not to come in here. You’re sick, you can’t be around him.”_

_“But mom, that doctor said it’s not conta-gus, conta-gas. He can’t get it.”_

_“I don’t care. Your brother is sick you can’t see him. You know better. Get out, now.”_

_“But I just wanted to see him.”_

_“It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t need you.” And with that she pushed the girl out into the hall and slammed the door shut behind her, closing herself in Jack’s room. Nicole stood there staring at the door, tears welling in her eyes. She could hear his muffled cries starting up and soft shushes as her mother attempted to quell the noise._

_The hall became dark. Nicole could see the blue shadows of where the walls met the ceiling go even darker. The hallway folded in on itself, wrapping up the little girl before the mist carried her and the dream away._

 

* * *

Nicole wakes up with blue mist behind her eyes. No not mist. Tears. The second she opens them the water spills out on to her pillow. She had clearly fallen asleep crying. Her eyes throb and are swollen. Her nose is stuffy, and she has a horrible headache. The kind you get after your heart gets broken or you’ve decided you need to quit a soul-sucking job. She feels the foot of her bed move slightly.

Wynonna.

“Hey, Babygirl, how ya feelin?” She says while lightly shaking Nicole’s foot back and forth.

“Um, fine, I guess.” She mutters, without sitting up. “My head is killing me.”

And then she sees the light.

Nicole suddenly remembers the happenings of the night before. It’s like she knows what she is about to look at before her head even tilts up. Her gaze lands on a woman standing in the doorway of the bedroom, glowing in technicolor. She is breaking through the blue that inhabits every aspect of Nicole’s visual field. Everything that surrounds the woman is blue, except for her. Wynonna in front of her is blue. When she looks down at her own hands, they are blue too. But the woman. She is a crisp dream. A color wheel, with gradients and transitions and opaque and translucent drops of every color Nicole always knew she was supposed to be seeing. Colors she knows everyone should encounter every day, but for some reason aren’t. She glows, casting out that light around her. Changing the monochrome of the room to a natural saturation.

“Hey,” the woman lets out, concern soaking her voice.

“Um. Hi,” Nicole looks at her for a second and then turns back to Wynonna. “Can we talk? Alone?”

Wynonna turns around to face Waverly, but before she can make the request, Waverly puts up her hand saying, “It’s fine, I’ll give you, uh, you two, a minute.” The befuddled look on her face catches both Wynonna and Nicole off-guard. Waverly almost sounds like she's on the edge of laughter at the words “you two.”

Once Waverly leaves the room, Wynonna stands to close the door before speaking.

“Do you see it too?” Wynonna sits back on the bed.

“What? You mean the weird-ass magical aura thing coming off the crazy stranger in our apartment that fell out of the ceiling? Sure. I see it.” Nicole coughs it out, almost laughing herself now.

“Yeah. Same.” Wynonna chuckles back. Her eyes light up. “Wednesdays, amiright!” Then the laugh fades and the smile does too, until the woman at the foot of the bed is back to staring at the sheets covering Nicole’s feet.

“Wynonna, I think she knows us. Somehow. I—I don’t understand it. But she knows us.” Nicole wipes off some dried salt from the tears left over from the night before. She flicks the salt crumbs on the floor.

Wynonna watches her, “Gross, Nicole. That was gross.”

“Sorry?” She smiles. It feels wrong.

“I don’t know how either, but I think you’re right. Like, people don’t fall from the sky. That shit’s not normal.”

“No. It’s not.” Nicole nods, unironically.

They’re quiet for a moment, both lost in thought. Then Wynonna speaks again.

“She says she’s my sister. My baby sister. Waverly Earp. That’s crazy, right?” Her brow creases, and she tries to find meaning in it. How could this woman be at all? How could she just appear, like she did? Could she really be her sister?

“Yeah, Wynonna. It is crazy. But I don’t know—”

“What?”

“The way she looked when we asked who she was. She looked—I don’t know—sad? Or, surprised. Like she wasn’t expecting it. Like she wasn't expecting us to not know.” She thinks about it for another second.

Shit!” She sits up quickly and moves forward too fast, throwing her head forward in a way that makes it pound even worse.

“Nicole, what is it?”

“She needs to go to the hospital. Whoever she is. She almost died.” She throws the blankets off and rushes towards the bedroom door.

Before she can open the door, Wynonna blurts out in a sarcastic tone, “Uh, good luck with that, I already tried to convince her, but she refused to leave the apartment.”

“Why?” But Nicole already knows why. She remembers her panic attack. Remembers the way Waverly held her. Remembers how a perfect stranger calmed her down and made it all okay. Knowing all that doesn’t make it any less of a surprise when her heart flutters oddly at Wynonna's answer.

“Because of you. She didn't want to leave you."

Nicole stands there for a moment, not really sure what to say. Just sharing a look with her friend. Wynonna casts her a sympathetic expression. One that says "yeah, this is all pretty fucked, huh." She decides to go with a lighter response.

“Well that’s not weird or anything.” Nicole opens the door and walks into the living room, stopping dead in her tracks, realizing she only has on her Toy Story boxers that she sleeps in and an oversized white T-shirt. She forgets to care when she sees Waverly sitting on the couch, with a book in her hands.  

“You’re reading.”

“Yep.” Waverly doesn’t look up.

Wynonna walks into the living room and stands next to Nicole. “Hey, you really should get checked out.” She looks at Waverly, scanning her carefully. She can sort of see a resemblance.

So. Fucking. Weird. 

“I’m fine.” Waverly turns the page. Crossing her left leg over her right. Nicole and Wynonna look to each other, a bit perturbed.

“So, Waverly, right? Your heart stopped. You need to have a doctor look you over.”

“I don’t need a doctor.”

“Okayyyy. Then a nurse. Or an EMT. A dang Gnome Technologist would be fine, but you need to make sure you’re okay.” Wynonna surprises herself with how demanding she’s getting. She doesn’t get like this. Even with Nicole.

“Oh, you want to know if I’m okay? Hmm, let’s see.” She stands and drops the book on the couch. She starts pacing back and forth in front of the coffee table. “You two, you don’t know me. For a bit, I thought, oh crap, well that blows. But maybe it’s just a funky dream dust that some goblin sprayed on you. Or maybe it’s a widow venom we haven’t seen that makes you trip balls, or maybe it’s—” She pauses and collects herself. “But you know what? None of that would make sense. Because I’ve never been in this apartment. We’re not even in Purgatory, are we?” She walks to the window and pulls a dangling string, drawing the blinds and letting in the clear morning light. “We’re in Calgary. Why the heck are we in Calgary?”

“Waverl—” Wynonna starts but is immediately cut off.

“Oh, I’m not done.” She chuckles to herself and starts to pace again. She pulls a cellphone out of her back pocket and holds it up.

Nicole recognizes her blue case. “Hey, that’s mine!” She walks forward and swipes it out of Waverly’s hand, giving her a look of disapproval. She instantly realizes it was a bad move.

Waverly nods her head to herself and continues angrily pacing back and forth. “Yeah, I looked some stuff up. Did you know you can check birth records straight from an app? Yeah, you can! There’s a freakin’ app for that! Well do you want to know what I found when I searched for the name ‘Waverly Earp’?

She pauses and looks to the two dumbfounded women standing in front of her, apparently waiting for an answer.

Nicole and Wynonna glance their eyes simultaneously to each other, looks of pure fear plastered on their faces, not daring to move their bodies so as not to further agitate the tornado that is ‘Waverly Earp’ burning a circular path into the middle of their living room carpet.

Before either one works up the courage to speak, Waverly starts up again, walking up to them, closing the distance.

“Nothing. I found nothing!” She grabs the phone out of Nicole’s hands and types in the password like it’s second nature. Apparently, Nicole Haught is predictable in any reality.

“Hey, how did you—?” Nicole begins but shuts up quickly when Waverly gives her a glare of a thousand suns. “Ok, later’s fine,” she acquiesces before taking one large step backwards to stand slightly behind an equally frightened Wynonna.

Waverly pulls up the screen she’s looking for and turns the phone around, showing a “no results found” box under the search field.

Nicole and Wynonna nod in agreement. “Yep, that’s nothing alright,” Wynonna says. Waverly hits her shoulder with the back of her wrist.

“Wynonna!” Waverly yells, before going back to pacing once she feels satisfied enough in giving her sort-of sister an angry look, much like the one she gave Nicole a moment ago.

She stops again.

“Oh my god. Oh my god. Wynonna. Nicole. I don’t exist.” She slowly sits backwards onto the coffee table, eyes settling on the black TV screen in front of her. “I don’t exist.”

The realization hits her. It splashes over her face and she feels it like a shiver running through her whole body.

“I don’t exist.”

All the years she spent trying to be seen. Trying to make her presence known. All the years Waverly Earp spent in the shadow of two sisters, one that loved her and tried, but always falling short—for a while at least—and the other who made her childhood a living hell. The other who tried to kill her girlfriend.

After all the forgotten birthdays and lonely milestones that she always celebrated by herself; after finally breaking away—with the help of Gus, of course—but after breaking away and getting her degree in ancient languages and finding a place in their weird little supernatural hunting crew, and after meeting Nicole and changing the world and and saving the world. After losing Dolls.

All of that happened for her to just—not exist?

“I don’t exist,” She finally looks up. Devastation written on face. Her and Wynonna catch each other's direct gaze.

Wynonna takes a step forward and kneels in front of her. “Hey, hey.” She puts her hand on Waverly’s knee and tries to calm her before the tears that are already welling in her eyes can start. “Listen, Waverly. Listen to me. You feel this?” Wynonna takes her hand and holds it tight. “You feel that? You’re here. And you exist. You exist.”

Nicole doesn’t say a word. She just watches as the tears drop from Waverly’s face onto Wynonna’s hand. She watches as the droplets slide off her hand and fall on the carpet, turning the pale green fibers to a dark forest green where the water soaks in. She stares at the spots on the carpet and then speaks, in as soft a tone as she can muster.

“Waverly, we’ll figure this out. Okay? This is—it’s a lot. For all of us. But we’ll figure it out. Don’t worry.” Nicole tries to give a weak smile to comfort the girl crying in front of her. For a second, she thinks she sounds helpful. She thinks the tentative kindness written on her own face might help calm the girl that’s clearly upset. Clearly questioning her place in the world. 

And she means it, she really does. She wants to help. She wants to figure out what all of this means. The dreams. The visions. That patient at the hospital. The whole falling from the ceiling thing. She is one hundred percent genuine when she tells Waverly that they will figure it out.

But when the already twisted expression on Waverly’s face bends into an even more extreme look of pain and anguish—all because Nicole made the foolish mistake of smiling at Waverly Earp, sitting on her living-room coffee table, Nicole's heart drops like a heavy stone. _Crap._

‘Crap’ is just about the only word that comes to Nicole’s mind.

Yes, Nicole. Crap.

Crap indeed.


	7. the things we say and the things we don't

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> not a whole lot of plot progression in this update, but hopefully you all enjoy the dialogue

The last time Nicole sat in the backseat of a car Wynonna was driving, she had been sure she wasn’t going to live to tell the tale. To everyone’s surprise, here she was, thinking about that time that she had almost not lived to tell the tale because of Wynonna.

Nicole scooches to the far seat to make space for Waverly, in case she ever decides to get in the truck. Waverly Earp is standing curbside shifting her eyes thoughtfully from the back of Wynonna’s blue Landcruiser to the front. And then the back again. Fixing her eyes on a different dent each time.

Nicole can see that Waverly seems to be having some sort of existential crisis on where to sit but is wholly unaware that it is almost exclusively due to the thought of riding shotgun with a sister, her favorite person on the planet, that holds no recollection of her, or sitting (very uncomfortably) next to the love of her life who doesn’t remember the love part or the life part.

Waverly would rather ride on the roof of the truck or in the rear cargo space or hang on to the rusty, underbelly pipes that only have about two feet of clearance to the bare ground, if it were appropriate. But alas.

Plush leather upholstery and an open window to stick her head out as far as her seatbelt will allow will have to be enough to nourish her embarrassment and discomfort for the time being. Maybe she’ll catch some flies while she’s at it and choke before they ever even get anywhere. One can only hope.

Once she chooses a seat of course.

Waverly even starts to do a little jig, taking a step forward, shaking her head, mumble-laughing to herself, and backtracking towards the back with Nicole. Then the front again. Nicole tries to hold it together but fails when she smiles and rolls her eyes, aggressively enough so that Waverly can see her doing it. And she does.

_How familiar._

“Waverly, why don’t you sit back here,” Nicole finally says mockingly. She knows that she doesn’t know this girl from Adam. She is also aware that every moment feels loaded with things that aren’t being said that really ought to be said.

But dang, if this isn’t at the very least one of the most amusing and interesting humans Nicole has ever seen. Nicole quirks her eyebrow in the sort of way that says, ‘ _wow this is absolutely hilarious, but I’m also so so so scared of laughing in the face of this tiny strange adorable girl that fell from the sky.’_ And she is. Nicole is terrified.

Waverly steps on the foot rail while training her eyes on the floor mat with a slight smirk of her own traveling to one side of her mouth. If she could only hide it away. She needs to stop letting herself enjoy these moments. These crumbs. Every time she does, she immediately feels an assault of questions that scare the crap out of her. She doesn’t want to face them yet.

And she will. She’ll face them.

She’s Waverly Earp.

Just…not yet.

This feeling of floating adrift in space, unsure of where, when, how, or why she is doesn’t feel great. But for now, she’s going to enjoy her happy, warm denial. Everyone’s been either unconscious or moving nonstop in the last 24 hours, so no real discussions have been had about how it is they’ve all…come together. She’s going to enjoy the feeling of this redhead smiling at her own out-of-character indecision. She’ll enjoy this crumb. Better this than think about what’s really clanking around in the back of her head. Everything she remembers. And everything she doesn’t.

“You might want to put that on,” says Nicole, a bit warningly, pointing to Waverly’s seatbelt that’s still hanging next to her.

Waverly barely has enough time to let out a quick “Huh?” before the car abruptly lurches backwards, throwing Waverly headfirst into the passenger seat headrest.

“Told you,” Nicole says with a proud tilt of her head and a smile, not looking up from her phone screen.

She moves back into her seat and buckles in. “Wynonna, holy smokes! Can you slow down?”

Wynonna has her body twisted in the driver seat, one arm resting merrily on the shoulder of the passenger seat while her other expertly holds tight to the steering wheel. Her head is turned towards the rear window, glaring directly past Nicole and Waverly into the street. “No can-do Earp from Earth 2, this is the only way I can get the car into first.”

“And how’s that?” Waverly retorts visibly fearful, holding tightly on to the car door siding. She could have sworn Wynonna was a better driver. Her Wynonna, she tells herself.

“Super quickly, straight out of reverse.”

“Wynonna that doesn’t even make sense!” Waverly yells back.

“I don’t make the rules, kid.” She winks then shifts into first and the truck lurches one more time. This time in the correct direction. They set off on the three minute, fifteen second drive to the hospital. Waverly would have walked but both Nicole and Wynonna insisted that they drive. It was as if they thought she was going to stroke out at any moment.

Wynonna looks into the rear-view mirror, blurting out “So, uh Waverly, got your insurance card all ready?” with a sarcastic chuckle.

“Wynonna!” yells Nicole. “Little insensitive don’t you think?”

It’s obvious that everyone in the car is thinking about the fact that Waverly is identity-less.

“Aw come on, it’s just a joke,” she goes to hold Waverly’s eye contact in the mirror, “Waverly. Hey real talk—we’re gonna get this all sorted out. Promise.”

Waverly isn’t so sure.

The car stops at the Hospital main entrance. Nicole and Waverly hop out so that Wynonna can park.

Waverly speaks through the open passenger door window, “I know. It’s fine. It’s still—weird. Ok, go park. We’ll see you in there.”

Wynonna drives off, leaving Nicole and Waverly to walk into together.

Nicole holds the glass double door open for Waverly, who walks in to the lobby. She goes forward, intent on checking in at the front desk, not exactly sure how she plans on getting care without an ID, insurance, or petty cash of any kind, but then she feels her body being tugged to the right by way of her hand holding on to something. Waverly looks up, and, as if in slow-motion, watches as Nicole casually pulls on her hand, looking back every so often with a kind smile, gracefully navigating them through a doorway to a stairwell corridor.

Another crumb. Nicole lets go.

“Sorry,” Nicole holds up her hand as if it just touched fire. “I was thinking fast. I saw you b-lining it to the front desk and couldn’t let you do that.” Nicole finishes.

“What? Why?”

“Waverly, I think it’s better if you stay under the radar. You don’t have papers. You’re not in the system. They’re going to start throwing all these forms at you and…I think we should figure out our game plan first.” Nicole is glancing up the stairwell, checking to see if anyone is descending, then looks back to Waverly. She really doesn’t want to explain why she’s escorting someone around her place of work while she’s off-duty. She silently prays that she doesn’t run into Nedley.

“We?” Waverly perks her eyebrow.

Nicole doesn’t blame her for being suspicious. She knows she’s been cold to Waverly. At least in comparison to what she’s probably used to. Nicole is no fool. She remembers the "baby" comment from the night before when she fell apart. But Nicole can't think about that right now. It makes her head swim.

“Yes, we. Look, I feel like I have…”

“What?” Waverly seems concerned.

“…a responsibility? I don’t know. Somehow, I feel like this is my mess. Couldn’t begin to explain it.” She looks down at the floor, then back up to Waverly.

“It’s not your mess. It’s mine. You don’t have to be here. I’m not your responsibility. I’m not Wynonna’s. I can do this myself.” She’s starting to get impatient. Waverly doesn’t like hospitals. Never has. Especially not since the time Nicole—well, the last time. She knows she in no way wants to be here alone, but if she needs to be checked out, and they’re right, she really should, she needs to get it over with. Every second she stands here is another second too long. “Don’t you work, shouldn’t you be somewhere?”

“I’m a police officer. I work here. And I have the day off,” Nicole gestures to the general stairwell.

“Oh,” she smiles. “You work in a hospital? Weird.”

Nicole crinkles her eyebrow. “Why is that weird?” If not for Nicole’s curious smile, Waverly would wonder if she is offended.

“I don’t know. It just…is. Nicole,” she pauses, unsure if she should continue. But the thought of Nicole policing enclosed halls white-washed in artificial fluorescent light, when she’s seen the ease and confidence of an Officer Nicole Haught under a wide blue-jay sky, ceremoniously surrounded by jagged mountain peaks—well it’s weird.

_Oh fudgenuggets, what could it hurt?_

“I picture you. Out there,” she gestures out the window on the stairwell landing, her face twisted in wonder, “I see you patrolling the streets of Purgatory. Driving down that bumpy highway where the asphalt is still so wrecked from the ice storms last season. I see you, racing in your cruiser out to the York farm to tell those dumb boys they can’t let their alpaca wander into Mr. Jones’s garden—” Waverly can tell she’s already said too much because of the way Nicole is staring at her. “Not that you’re only good enough for a small town, that’s not what I mean at all—”

“Wait, Purgatory?” Nicole remembers that name from somewhere.

She doesn’t have time to remember because Waverly says out loud, more to herself than Nicole, “Maybe I should stop talking.”

And Nicole? Well, Nicole is stationary. She can’t move. She knows she should be offended. Offended that this stranger is telling her who she is supposed to be. Offended that she thinks she has any right to even talk about her like this at all. But it’s a little impossible to feel insulted when there is so much truth in Waverly’s words. It’s not hard for her to picture the scene that the other girl just painted because it has been the very thing Nicole has dreamed of since she decided to become a cop.

Goddamn. It sounds perfect. Out in the middle of nowhere. Free to breathe and go rock climbing and hiking on the back trails that only locals know about and having a dog with space of its own to run and chase the dang groundhogs that keep eating the tomatoes in her garden. She always wanted tomatoes. Yeah, Nicole has thought about it a bit.

The idea of having a real community that knows her and looks to her when they need help? She doesn’t know why she gravitates towards that feeling but she does. Small-town altruism. Whatever the hell that is. And it’s not like Calgary is the biggest city in the world. It’s not. But to her, its still a city. And Nicole always dreamed of having space.

“Waverly, I help people every day. I like my job. I wanted to be a cop and now I’m a cop.” She lets the fantasy fall away when she remembers why she never left. Nedley, for one.

Then there’s Wynonna. There’s always Wynonna.

She sighs silently to herself. “Listen, I’m here. I’m helping. Let’s get you checked out and then we can all go somewhere to talk. But right now, can we just—can we just ignore the spooky stuff?”

“Excuse me?” Waverly is getting a bit pissed now. “The spooky stuff?”

“Yeah. The spooky stuff. God, you fell from our living room ceiling. That’s weird! And damn, you don’t technically ex—" she stops herself, but just barely.

“No go ahead, Nicole. I don’t really what—exist? Is that what you were going to say?” Waverly doesn’t look pleased with the direction this conversation has gone in.

Nicole tries to regain her footing but finds it difficult knowing she stepped so far past the line than she cares to admit.  “I don’t know. You’re talking about stuff that has nothing to do with me. Please, just stop.” Nicole’s voice is strained. “You don’t know me. I still have no idea what’s even happening right now. And it’s probably because we haven’t communicated properly. So, let’s just get this done so we can do that. Okay?”

Waverly nods her head and brusquely moves around Nicole in acceptance, completely done with this conversation. As she passes her and starts ascending the stairs, she mutters quietly, “Maybe you should stop talking too,” before continuing up to the second floor and slamming the door behind her.

 

* * *

 

 

Nicole decides to give Waverly a few minutes of space before she goes and finds her. She is sitting on the ledge of the tall stairwell windowsill. She fights tooth and nail with the practical side of her brain that tells her she shouldn’t be letting a stranger roam the halls in her workplace. A workplace she guards. Protects.

Blah blah blah.

Somehow Nicole knows, without even having to acknowledge it, that Waverly is…safe. She might be a stranger. And she might be aggravating as all hell, but she does seem…stable. Like she can be trusted. Emotionally she’s reacted exactly the sort of way a person should if they suddenly find themselves in an odd fugue-y situation.

Nicole has no reason to think she’s pulling some extravagant con. That would be impressive, knowing the kind of elaborate smoke-show she would have needed to orchestrate. Sure, maybe Waverly is an accomplished magician con-artist that travels the country and swindles people for all they have, but for some reason, that seems less likely than the idea that Waverly Earp fell from a portal housed in the chipped crown-molding of Nicole Haught’s living room ceiling.

No, Waverly isn’t crazy.

She’s not like the craziness that surrounds her. She’s not like the insanity of appearing out of nowhere at a time when Nicole was already feeling like the seams were falling apart. Waverly evades it all. Because she’s protected. It’s like that funky tie-die aura surrounding Waverly stands out against the rest of Nicole’s blue world. The fact that Wynonna notices it too is comforting.

The door opens and Wynonna is standing there in her faded leather jacket and washed out blue jeans. Her chestnut hair drapes past her shoulders and sheens in the light that jets past Nicole’s head, which is still comfortably situated against the cold glass of the stairwell window. Wynonna shifts her eyes from the stoic Nicole, straight up through the hole that dissects the stairwell’s center. She twists her neck up for a second and then rolls her eyes.

“What the hell are you two doing?” Wynonna says it first to Nicole and then turns her head back towards the upper ends of the stairwell where she can see Waverly sitting with her legs poking through the metal bars of the top floor landing.

Nicole furrows her brow, confused only at the “you two” part.

“I’m just, hanging out,” Waverly says in a monotone voice, swinging her legs back and forth leisurely. She gets up and moves down the steps, dramatically approaching the turns of the angles of the landing while she descends. “I walked around for a while but then realized I don’t have a doctor or anyone to meet.” She sounds a bit dejected. “So, I just thought I would sit there.”

Wynonna is the one who is furrowing her brow now, and its directed right at Nicole. She whispers, “What did you do Haught-stuff?”

“Me? Nothing!” She holds up her hands in an _I swear_ stance. She sighs.

“Go apologize.”

“How do you know that I need to apologize?” Nicole chirps back. She feels a bit attacked.

“Because its written all over your face, dude.” She takes a bite of a bear claw she seems to have procured out of nowhere. She mumbles through the crumbs, “We’ve got things to do, let’s get to it.”

“Wynonna,” she continues to whisper, Waverly being only three landings away at this point, still taking her time to descend. “Listen, I’m curious. I know why I’m here, but why are you here?” She almost says it accusingly.

Wynonna raises one eyebrow, clearly surprised by the question. “Geez Nicole, don’t be jealous. It washes out your coloring.”

“Jealous? I’m not jealous, what do you even mea—”

“Hey guys, ready?” Waverly has returned the ‘wave and smile’ mask back to her face.

“Yeah let’s go. Sixth floor, Waves,” Wynonna blurts out, surprising herself at the nickname. She moves to follow Waverly who has already turned around to head back up the steps. Nicole reluctantly stands and follows the two women.

As Nicole silently hikes up the steps, she catches the gaze of both Waverly and Wynonna as they make their turns. She can see sugar crystals from the now disappeared donut dusting the bottom of Wynonna's chin. 

"Wy, hold on." Nicole casually grabs Wynonna's hand to stop her from continuing upwards. Wynonna twists around to face Nicole, who is standing one step below her. Nicole reaches up with her free hand to wipe the Earp's chin clean. She pulls her hand back and immediately feels the heat of Waverly's gaze on them both. Her eyes are wide. She almost looks like she's on the verge of tears. She quickly speeds up, stomping up the steps in a fury, leaving Nicole and Wynonna standing, once again, in a shared look of confusion.

Nicole can't help but feel like this day has been going on for weeks. As she nudges Wynonna forward, she silently laments the fact, one she knows deep down in her bones, that its only just now getting started.


	8. old friends, new realities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waverly finds a familiar face, remembers why she hates needles so much, Oh and some more of the Earp sisters, God bless 'em.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long! the semester ended so I was a bit busy, but I should have the next one up soon. Hopefully the next day or so.

“Jeremy,” is all Waverly can say before joy that she hasn’t allowed herself to feel in quite some time washes over her. She jumps into the scientist’s arms. She hugs him tight before letting go, acutely aware that this is the most satisfying reunion she’s had since arriving—well, not home, but here, at the very least. Too many emotions and too many loaded conversations have stood in the way of Waverly embracing Wynonna or Nicole. She wants to. She misses them so much. God, how much she wishes she could just curl up on the couch with her sister and watch bad movies. But she can’t.

Jeremy on the other hand. Jeremy is Jeremy. He’s open and silly and pure and for a moment, she completely forgets that he doesn’t know her. When she takes a step backwards and sees his blank face of confusion it hits her all over again. She’s getting tired of these moments where her heart drops into her stomach and uncomfortably rests there, waiting until another future moment of relief draws it back up, just for it to fall again at the inevitability of reality failing her once more.

“This is snazzy,” she says pointing to his white jacket, a bit taken aback by Jeremy’s dapper appearance. He’s wearing a salmon and white checkered button-up under a pale green sweater-vest. A physician’s whitecoat cleanly hangs from his shoulders.

“Um, hi,” he gives a placating smile then leans into Nicole, still holding Waverly’s line of sight, and whispers, just loud enough for Nicole to hear, “She from the fourth-floor psych unit?”

Nicole laughs. She shakes her head. “That would make this a whole lot easier, wouldn’t it?” she says mostly to herself. He cocks his brow, intent on asking what she means but Wynonna butts in.

“Hey Jer, this is Waverly. She’s, uh, a…friend. Can you give her a once over? I hate to bug you while you’re at work, but it’s kinda important. We also…” she looks back to Waverly and Nicole, “We kinda need to be discreet, if you catch my drift,” she winks her right eye more times than is necessary.

It’s Wynonna, so Jeremy definitely catches her drift. Her drift is usually about as subtle as—well, as Wynonna Earp trying to be subtle. He also knows not to ask any questions.  

They couldn’t have shown up at a better time. Jeremy has been trying to avoid his boss all morning. One of his fellow residents had arrived late to rounds, so naturally their Attending had been taking it out on the collective by throwing grunt work their way. She ranted on and on for 45 minutes about the importance of teamwork, and the failures of one person being the failures of the many. Jeremy desperately needed a respite.

The four of them stand there, blocking the hallway as medical professionals try to slip by. One man, who looks like he just came out of the OR, because he still has blue regulation shoe covers over his fancy Nike sneakers, doesn’t even look up from his phone when he absentmindedly walks into Nicole. This really isn’t a great place to have a conversation, she thinks indifferently.

“Discreet you say?” He looks around for a second, clearly deciding on something. He then directs them towards a set of fire-safe double doors behind Waverly that have a make-shift 8x11” sheet of white printer paper hanging by a single piece of scotch tape. It reads: “UNIT CLOSED DUE TO RENOVATIONS.”

“Nicole?” he gestures to the lock pad on the wall next to the door.

“Oh, right.” She glances around to make sure no one is watching her break so many damn rules that she feels she should resign on the spot, then pulls out her security key card from her wallet, swipes it in front of the electronic lock, and the doors swing open. They slip into the empty unit undetected.

Nicole relaxes a bit, but until they leave, she knows she won’t be able to completely. She kicks herself for the realization that this was a dumb idea. They should have just had Jeremy come to the apartment. This feels like an unnecessary risk for all of them. Jeremy could lose his license. She could lose her job.  What if Nedley finds out? Nicole feels uncharacteristically out of control. She’s taking risks the way that—that Wynonna does. She supposes Jeremy is a bit more lax as well, probably from his night-time gig as a PI, but Nicole isn’t used to this. Its new for her.

Nicole likes rules. She likes protocol. She likes the comfort in knowing all the potential consequences of any given choice. Whether it’s the decision to wear her Kevlar vest on any given day, where she, to the best of her ability, can run through the mental algorithm of the probability of taking a stray bullet to the chest, or whether it’s the choice to go with chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla for dessert. Wynonna usually suggests both.

The point is, Nicole Haught likes order. She likes knowing her place in the world and even more, she likes knowing that she has the capacity to protect it. So, she wonders why it is that all of the systems she clings to, the ones that have in the past made her feel safe and secure and in control, have all but disintegrated just because a stranger fell from her ceiling?

She follows Wynonna, who seems to notice Nicole’s discomfort. Wynonna leads her to a couple of swivel chairs at the vacant nurse’s station where they can wait. Jeremy directs Waverly into an exam room.

He rustles around in the corner for a moment, moving a couple pieces of construction equipment that the workers had left behind. He manages to find a working outlet and plugs in an extension cord, immediately illuminating the room with a construction light blub hanging precariously from a hook screwed into a fresh slab of drywall. These are not the ideal conditions for a physical, but Jeremy knows that it’s the best they can do on the fly. Especially given Wynonna’s request that they stay out of sight.

“So, you’re a doctor?” Waverly says in disbelief, as he closes the door.

“Oh, this?” He touches the stethoscope around his neck and quips, “this is just my day job.”

“It’s so good to see you,” she says, unable to hold back her joy at laying eyes on someone else familiar in a world she doesn’t recognize.

He gives her a curious quirk of the eyebrow. “Ok, so Wynonna said you needed to be examined. What exactly brings you in?” He’s sitting on a black stool with rolling wheels, hands professionally folded in his lap. Waverly can’t help but think that he just totally looks the part. Jeremy M.D., here to diagnose and assess. The presence and authority he has in this role is surprising. _This is so weird,_ she thinks.

“Um, well…” she doesn’t know how to skirt the truth with Jeremy. This is her best friend. If she believes anything, its that even if he’s a bit different, he’s still him. Nicole is Nicole and Wynonna is Wynonna. She trusts her friends with everything she has, even if she isn’t sure that they trust her.

_Screw it._

“Okay, here’s the deal. I’m Waverly. Earp. Hello.” She gives him a small wave for effect. “I’m Wynonna’s long-lost sister. Except not. Because I maybe, sorta, kinda fell out of a wacky portal in their living room,” she points to the door. Jeremy correctly assumes she means Wynonna and Nicole. His eyes are remarkably wide. “Before that I was, well, I went away from home…for a while. It wasn’t my choice. It just happened. Some of it I remember, and some of it I don’t. But on my way back, I sort of…traveled.

“Traveled?”

“Through a door…”

“A door.” Jeremy knows his confirming words are just annoying, but he’s finding himself hard-pressed to form coherent sentences at this point.

“Yes. A door. Like I said it was a—”

“—A portal” There you go, Jeremy. More words. Words good.

“Yep. A portal. So, uh, is that like—bad for you?”

He stares at her. “You mean…medically?” His face is like a stone, unmoving.

“I don’t really know what to call it, or this. Heck, I don’t even know if this is the same world. God, Jeremy, I’ve been terrified of telling them,” she points again to the door, bringing her voice to a whisper, “because if it turns out that this _isn’t_ my world—if this is a different one, then that means I still haven’t made it home. I’ve spent...time...in the Garden. Yeah, THE Garden. That one. And I remember the beginning, when I got pulled in—I remember…some other stuff too, but there’s a point where it just goes blank. And then…poof I wake up with Nicole and Wynonna hovering over me, you know, like they do—and I—I don’t even know if they’re MY Nicole and Wynonna.”

Its not lost on Jeremy the way this girl speaks his name with perceived familiarity. All he can do is listen, because, at the very least, this day is turning out to be a lot more interesting than he’d expected.

“If they’re not, if this _isn’t_ my world, if this is more than just a spell that has everyone confused or an elaborate prank where Ashton is going to jump out and yell ‘you’ve been punk’d’ then you know what that means?”  

“No. What does it mean?” He asks this in his clinical voice. As if from the very start of this interview he had planned on asking the patient what it means when you are transported between different realities.

“It means they’re still out there. It means I haven’t made it home yet.” She looks him in the eyes. Through his concerned expression, a softened expression that is noticeably different from the face that had asked her the question, she can see herself reflected back. Through Jeremy’s contemplative nod of understanding, she can see her own face dropping in acceptance. In the realization that this may not be her world after all. That the place and the things and the people that she loves more than life itself—that they’re still terribly out of reach. As that sinks in—and it does—unfortunately for Waverly, it really does, she can feel herself begin to withdraw. Ever so slowly.

“I’m so sorry, you probably think I’m insane.”

“Yeah, you’re right. You are insane.”

Now Waverly is the one who stares. “Well I know everything I just said is a little _out there_ but you don’t need to be an asshole about it.” She crosses her arm.

“Yeah, definitely crazy to think that Mr. Mila Kunis is going to suddenly appear with cameras. We’re in Alberta.”

She smiles, wrinkles forming at the outer corners of her eyes. She isn’t sure if she’s more happy about knowing that some things in this world are the same, like two actors that have no bearing on her own life still being an item, or the fact that her best friend believes in what she is telling him. “So, you believe me?”

Jeremy shrugs his shoulders. “Sure, why not?” He smiles.

She’s so happy, but she can’t help but eye him skeptically. Waverly knows that her friend had quickly come to accept the impossibilities of a life in Purgatory. He had been welcomed into their Revenant-hunting fold faster than most. But she also distinctly remembers that they had not been the first stop on his supernatural tour of exposure. The Jeremy Chetri of her world had worked at Black Badge as a scientist that experimented and studied otherworldly entities. No wonder he had no problem coming to terms with the unexplained of the Ghost River Triangle.

But here, Waverly thinks to herself, Jeremy is a doctor. In the real world. And he works with Wynonna, who has made no mention to anything nefarious lurking in the night. Waverly knows her sister doesn’t keep secrets. And she certainly doesn’t keep secrets from her. Well, she supposes, in this world, Nicole. And from their reactions to Waverly’s arrival, she trusts that they have not encountered the supernatural before now. So why then is Jeremy so quick to trust her?

These thoughts round about in a lapping circle until they finally land on one question. Why does this man, one who has no reason to believe her, a total stranger, one who works in terms of probabilities, clinical analyses, and microscopic discoveries grounded in physiological explanations, so readily throw caution to what he has most likely trusted in his entire life? To so easily say “sure, why not?” at the absurd idea that the fabric of the universe isn’t as perfunctorily stapled together as he had previously thought?

From this, Waverly surmises that Jeremy—this Jeremy—knows…things. Things he’s keeping from the others.

 _Later,_ she thinks.

He speaks again, “Okay so, I think what we should do is a series of simple tests. Nothing major. Because there’s no way to really know what, a ‘portal,’ as we’re calling it, can do to a person’s body without knowing the kind of matter that you passed through. In lieu of that, the thing that I would be most concerned about are the things that I can account for. From a medical standpoint, that means checking the things we know. For example, I don’t see any obvious signs of head trauma from when you fell. Do you have pain anywhere?”

She shakes her head. “I should probably mention that there was a moment when I kinda, sorta, just a little bit- stopped breathing,” She consciously acknowledges that she makes a ‘yikes’ Chrissy Teigen face as she tells him about how Nicole and Wynonna had to do CPR to get her breathing again. Waverly then proceeds to wonder if Chrissy and John are married in this reality. _That baby is just too freakin’ cute to not exist._

He stands and palpates her head, looking for any contusions or bumps. He does a simple neurological exam and then continues speaking out loud, mostly to himself. “I don’t see any signs of neuro impairment, so I don’t think we’d need to spring for a head CT or MRI.” He goes over the rest of her body, giving her a thorough head-to-toe assessment. After taking her vitals, using his stethoscope and a blood pressure cuff attached to the wall, he continues with his spiel, one he had clearly given many times before. “Last thing I would like is to draw some blood.”

_Ugh, needles._

Waverly suddenly remembers where her hatred for hospitals was born. As Jeremy starts rummaging in his black bag for the supplies he’ll need, she stares towards the far door, bathed in the soft yellow light of the construction grade bulb that feels like such a contradiction to what she normally associates with hospitals. She almost takes comfort in the sawdust coating the floor and the smell of fresh drywall. It reminds her of the homestead. She laughs to herself, realizing that to Jeremy, an actual doctor, this non-sterile environment where he’s about to prick a patient with a needle is probably making him sweat with the fear of exposing her to potential infections.

But to Waverly, she relishes the fact that they are here, in this exam room, away from that white light that stings her eyes and discomforts her spirit. She apprehensively recalls the time she had fallen into the lake outside of Purgatory. Her trip to the hospital afterwards became a memory of her childhood she had tried to forget. She would later come to learn that Bobo Del Rey had saved her from a fate of drowning in freezing water. She had always wondered whether the suffocation would have killed her before the intense shock of the frigid lake could fatally draw the heat from her body. But thanks to Bobo, Ward had successfully been able to deliver the young girl to the emergency room where she would be warmed up with blankets and given IV fluids. Not that her stand-in for a father had looked ever-too pleased about spending quality whiskey-drinking time tending after the medical needs of a girl that wasn't even blood. But he always did do the bare minimum when it came to Waverly. If she needed food, she was fed. If she needed a jacket for cold weather, she was provided the proper attire. But love? Understanding? The unconditional feeling of belonging? Those 'luxuries' fell outside the scope of what Ward Earp had signed up for.

As Jeremy finds the correct gauge needle in an assumedly abandoned drawer at the edge of the small room, Waverly continues to zero in on the door, vividly picturing an emergency room nurse in outdated scrubs walking through the threshold, eliciting shrill screams from a younger version of herself as the nurse pulls out what always seemed, in her memory, to be a longer-than-necessary needle that would enter her skin. From that point on, Waverly could never help but think that healthcare professionals, be it doctors or nurses, surely took some kind of sadistic joy in poking their patients and causing discomfort and pain. With that thought, she examines Jeremy’s face as he punctures the skin of her arm to draw blood. She sees no such pleasure. She also sees no blood.

In fact, he almost grimaces.

“Jeremy, what the heck was that!” She doesn’t try to hide the accusatory panic on her face.

“What?!” He immediately looks up, quickly glancing from side to side around the room.

“That!” Waverly points at Jeremy’s face. “You—you made a face! You’ve done this before right?” She has a look of horror on her face.

“Please, I have an M.D.” He nervously laughs as he says this, hoping that she's satisfied with his answer.

She isn't.

“Jeremy Chetri. Are you lying to me?” She stands up, in an angry wave of energy, forcing the newly minted doctor to put down the needle.

“Well… okay its possible that I was sick the day we did our phlebotomy unit.” He says this apologetically, gritting his teeth and waiting for this stranger to chew him out. How he knew it was coming, he couldn’t say. Later, he would be able to give all kinds of metaphysical reasons as to why he sensed that Waverly’s freak-out was incoming. But for now, all he knew to do was slowly stand and back away as Waverly Earp let him have it.

After a few minutes of her animatedly explaining to her occasional friend (depending on the reality) that patients don’t appreciate it when doctors have “NO IDEA” what they are doing, and at the very least they should “TAKE AN ACTING LESSON AND PRETEND” or simply “GET SOMEONE ELSE TO DO IT” because some people just “DO NOT LIKE NEEDLES," she finally calms down.

Waverly isn’t sure why this whole needle business sends her over the edge. It’s just. She really doesn’t like needles.

There’s a knock on the door. It cracks open.

In a low, sarcastic whisper, Wynonna says, “Hey dudes, I know we’re having a dandy ol’ time today on our family outing to this closed off super-secret hospital ward, but do y’all think we could keep it down.” She makes a Ross Gellar quieting motion with her hands. She continues with her condescending tone, “it’s just—there’s this redheaded cop out here who’s about to have a panic attack because she thinks she’s gonna lose her job because of you two, and uh, ha, ha, it’s funny, that ends up falling on me to fix.” Her faces drops to a serious expression that says ‘cut the shit or I’ll cut it for you.’

“Sorry Wy. Your pal, Jeremy, here, apparently went through 8 years of schooling and doesn’t know how to draw blood.” Waverly smiles for dramatic effect.

“Is that so?” Wynonna’s smile returns as she eyes Jeremy up and down, “You sneaky bastard.” She says it as if she has never been more impressed with her partner. “Well move aside Chetri, let me show you how it’s done.”

He raises his hands in defeat and backs up to lean against a half torn out sink.

Waverly is sitting on the exam table when Wynonna confidently reaches down the side of the table and pulls up an arm rest that pivots into place. She maneuvers it so that it is comfortably propping up her sister’s right arm. Before the younger Earp can question how in the hell it is that Wynonna supposedly knows how to draw blood more successfully than an actual physician, the standing brunette is filling a vial. Waverly is understandably shocked that she never even felt or noticed Wynonna stick her. The older Earp hands it off to Jeremy, applies a tiny piece of gauze to the puncture site and commands Waverly to hold it there with pressure for a few minutes.

“Okay losers, let’s get out of here!” She turns around and lets the door slam shut behind her as Jeremy and Waverly sit and stare at each other in what can only be described as shock and awe at the performance they both just witnessed.

Waverly furrows her brow. “Wait, is she a doctor here too?”

“No. But she is Wynonna,” he says.

Waverly nods her head with a smirk, apparently finding that answer to be explanation enough.

Jeremy starts packing away his bag. “I’m going to get this down to the lab. I’ll let you know when I have the results.”

Before Waverly stands, she hears some muffled shouts come from beyond the door. She knows immediately who it is. She hops down from the exam table and rushes out into the hall. Her heart bottoms out at the sight before her.

Nicole is on the floor, sitting with her head between her knees, her back against the nurse’s station desk, clutching her temples, clearly in a fit of intense pain.

“What happened to her?” Waverly yells to Wynonna as she speeds to Nicole’s side.

Wynonna is crouching beside Nicole, urgent concern painted on her face. “I don’t know! She said her head hurt and then she just went down!”

Waverly turns her head so that her voice can carry across the hall, “Jeremy! Get out here you slow-poke! We need you!” She turns back to Nicole, whose eyes have started rolling backwards, revealing only the whites behind her eyelids. She doesn’t respond.

Jeremy runs to them, but before he can even examine Nicole, she opens her eyes and holds up her hand.

“I’m fine. I’m fine.” She starts to stand.

“Babygirl, you just keeled over like Elle Woods doing the bend and snap. You’re not fine.”

Nicole holds her hand up, pushing away both Waverly and Wynonna’s worrying bodies. “Seriously, I’m fine, it was just a migraine,” she says this more to Wynonna than to anyone else. Wynonna holds Nicole under her arm, stabilizing her until she can stand on her own. Waverly leans against the desk, watching as Nicole brushes off the sawdust sticking to her red corduroys. shooting a worried stare in Nicole’s direction. She can’t help it. Even if this isn’t her Nicole, she can’t help but worry. And she can’t help but notice how Wynonna holds her up. How Nicole lets her.

“You should really let Jeremy look you over. Honestly, that kind of looked like a seizure, Nicole.” Waverly’s voice is quiet but firm. She tries to sound distant, like this isn’t her girlfriend she’s talking to. She's kind of over making these strangers uncomfortable with her familiarity. But she also sees the way Nicole looks at her at the sound of her name.

“No. I want to get out of here. It wasn’t like before. It wasn’t a—a dream, or whatever. Just a headache. Come on.”

Before anyone can argue further, Nicole leads them out of the hospital wing. They drop Jeremy off at the lab and then make their way back home. Well, to _their home_ , Waverly muses. Wynonna and Waverly ride together, while Nicole grabs her cruiser from the parking garage. Waverly wonders why Nicole would even need a car when she lives so close to her workplace. Another question for another time, she decides.

As Wynonna lazily makes her turns, her leather jacket squeaking in accordance with the twists of the steering wheel, Waverly glances out the window.

“Wynonna, do you think she should even be driving?”

Wynonna considers this then answers, “You gonna be the one to stop her?”

Waverly smiles as she watches the hospital disappear from her passenger-door mirror. She raises her eyebrows in agreement and looks at Wynonna. “You’ve got a point there, sis.”

It slips out, and she almost regrets it, but then, after Waverly turns back to watch as Calgary neighborhoods pass by, she swears she sees a hint of a proud, upturning smile reaching across the expanse of her not-sister’s face.


	9. The ghost river triangle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the story about the fire is a true story. Thank my best friend for that one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really happy with this chapter. Hope you guys like it. I've laid a lot of groundwork so far. Sorry if things have been all about that "slow burn." things should start picking up soon.
> 
> Oh, before I forget... in the show, Wyatt Earp wasn’t actually responsible for building the town of Purgatory. He had mentioned to Doc that he had plans to travel to it. But for the sake of this story, im changing that slightly and writing him as the founder of the town.

Nicole practically drops the three shot glasses on to the kitchen table as if she’s curious what it would sound like if one broke. She sits back in the chair, staring at her hand as she rolls the empty glass around on the fake wood surface. Maybe she is just zoning out. Maybe she really is curious what her reflection looks like in the continuously-changing, refractory glint of the Earp & Chetri Investigations Inc. logo that stares back at her.

The pain in her head has finally dimmed to just barely noticeable. She squashes what remains with one quick kickback of the cheap bottle of off-brand rum that Wynonna had stashed in their liquor cabinet, the front of which she sees is still covered in charcoal stains. Nicole amusedly chuckles to herself at the memory of the time that same cabinet had caught on fire one Christmas Eve when she had been cooking a Baked Alaska dinner for Wynonna and Gus. Things got a bit out of hand when Wynonna saw the flames licking the ceiling and immediately decided she had no choice but to live. She had high-tailed it across the living room to the sliding balcony door, opening the latch, ready to jump, even though they lived on the third floor. Nicole had started laughing harder than she could ever remember laughing at the look of pure terror on Wynonna’s face. She hadn’t even needed to get the fire extinguisher because the flames died out on their own once Gus had pulled the pan from the burner. But there Wynonna had been, one leg draped over the balcony railing, eyes looking to the ground clearly discerning the least painful way to crash into it. It had been that moment when she had finally noticed Nicole and Gus laughing wholeheartedly at her reaction.

Nicole recalls that she hadn’t even been hurt by the fact that Wynonna had taken up an ‘every man for himself’ reaction to the fire. It had been too damn funny to be mad. Not that Nicole could ever be mad at Wynonna for long, even if she did deserve it.

She is roused from her thoughts when two girls that look strikingly alike walk through the front door. Yep. There’s no mistaking it. As Nicole knocks back one more shot, she thinks to herself that they’ve got to be related. Either that or—nope, they’re related. Nothing else could account for that resemblance. And not just that. It’s also the way they stand next to each other. Something about their posture. Or the ease with which they share space. She can’t quite pinpoint it.

“What took y’all so long!” Nicole holds up her empty shot glass to the sky. “Let’s get this over with.” She gestures towards the two chairs and ceremoniously fills the other two glasses on the table with the questionable liquid.

Waverly and Wynonna sit. Nicole can see that she is concerning them both. “Oh, lighten up you two. As if one judgy Earp wasn’t bad enough. It’s my day off. Have a drink for Christ’s sake.”

“Twist my arm, why don’t you,” Wynonna says as she readies her glass, waiting for Waverly to do the same.

“Are we celebrating something?” Waverly asks this, knowing full-well they are not.

When Wynonna answers, Nicole feels a feeling she isn’t used to when it comes to her friend. A weird, itchy, burn in her stomach. Or maybe her heart. She can’t tell.

“To Waverly. My sister. Welcome to our shit-world. It’s probably just as shitty as yours.” Wynonna holds up her glass.

“As eloquent as ever, Wynonna.”

There it is again. Nicole can’t help but feel that…yeah, it’s definitely jealousy—at the way Waverly says Wynonna’s name. Like this stranger knows her better than she does. Logically, Nicole understands that, in a way, she does. Or least, she knows a different Wynonna better.

But this one is hers.

Almost out of a sense of revenge, for who, she doesn’t know, maybe her own fucked up situation, selfishly, Nicole attempts to take control of the toast. “Yeah. To Waverly. The sister Wynonna never had.” She raises her glass and drinks, before the others are able to.

Wynonna looks hurt. Nicole instantly regrets her words. The next shot fixes the regret.

They sit like that for a while, Nicole fully past tipsy and the Earp sisters staring in silence at their own shot glasses. Things are tense, that much can’t be ignored. By anyone. So much so that one Earp stands and starts pacing next to the table of awkward women. To Waverly’s surprise, it isn’t her. It’s Wynonna.

“Wy, whatcha doin’?” Nicole’s words almost come out in a mocking tone, but mild concern laces her question. Because she is. Concerned. It’s not often she sees Wynonna get nervous like this. Not recently at least. But she can’t help but think back to a time when anxiety and fear ruled her friend’s life. What a disaster that trip to Greece had been, she thinks to herself. _We can’t go back to that._

Wynonna stops moving. She looks up and sees the two girls at the table staring. “Sorry, just thinking.”

She sits back down, deliberates for a second, then speaks. “Here’s the deal Waverly, I really do believe we’re sisters. Jeremy is running a DNA test, just to confirm. But I’m curious. I’m curious as to how we’re sisters.” Nicole sees that Wynonna is still oddly nervous. She doesn’t blame her in the least. This is truly the first conversation the three of them have had regarding their situation. Not only that, but this is the first time either Wynonna or Nicole have outwardly asked Waverly about anything having to do with this ‘other world.’ It seems like a dangerous step. Nicole can’t help but feel that if they dive in to knowing things about this other place—this place where this small, interesting, frustrating girl hails from—there may be no going back. Like once they open themselves up to learning the details, things might be changed forever. Nicole can’t decide whether that’s a good or bad thing.

“Wait,” Nicole says. “What if this is one of those situations where we tear a hole in the space-time continuum because we know about things—well, things about ourselves, or our _different_ selves, that we’re not supposed to know?”

“Ugh, where’s Jeremy? This conversation nerded up so damn fast.” Wynonna pours herself another drink and takes it.

“That’s not a bad point, Nicole.” Waverly starts, shifts in her seat, then continues, “but honestly, I think it’s a little to late for that. I’m already here. Wherever here is.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. And honestly? I’m already having those weird-ass dreams as it is, right? So whatever damage could be done…maybe it’s already happened. If we’re gonna right this situation, we need to share info.”

“That’s fair, but what exactly is there to right?” Nicole and Waverly look to Wynonna when she says this.

“Wy, she can’t stay. She doesn’t belong here.”

If a person can witness someone else’s heart bottom out through the expression on their face, Nicole swears she sees it happen to Wynonna. “Sorry. That’s not what I meant, Waverly.”

“No. It’s fine. You’re right.” Waverly nods to herself. “She’s right, Wynonna. I don’t belong here. So, here’s what I propose, because I can’t do it myself.” She stands, and walks to the center of the kitchen, looking at the floor as she paces. She returns to the table and positions herself, stoically upright between Nicole and Wynonna, as if ritualizing her next words.

“I need your help. We work together, we find a way to get me back. Back to Purgatory.” Waverly looks back and forth to Nicole and Wynonna at this. “I need to find a way home.”

If it weren’t for the serious, pointed tone Waverly had been trying to convey, the high-pitched cackle coming from Wynonna wouldn’t cut so deep. But when Wynonna starts laughing, Waverly can’t help but laugh too.

“Geez, Waves, what’s with the dramatics? Duh, we’ve already decided to help. I thought that was clear when we dragged you to the hospital and everything.”

Surprisingly, Nicole nods her head and shrugs in agreement, a slight smile showing a more relaxed room than before.

“Ok, then.” Waverly sits back down.

“So, Waves—the sister thing?”

“Right. Well, where I come from, it isn’t just us. There was also—”

“—Willa.” Wynonna cuts in.

“Wynonna, you don’t have to do this—” Nicole states, unsure if this whole sharing thing is a good idea. Her uncertainty suddenly has nothing to do with the threat of universal paradoxes of alternate realities, and more to do with digging up a past that maybe should stay buried. She looks into Wynonna’s eyes, almost telepathically communicating that it’s okay, that she doesn’t need to bring up things she knows Wynonna has worked so hard to put behind her.

“No. It’s okay Nic.” Wynonna says this, and Nicole spots an upturned brow of—either confusion or amusement, maybe both—on Waverly’s face, probably at the sound of the nickname. Maybe no one called her Nic in the other world, she thinks. “My big sister, Willa, she died the day I was born.” Her voice takes on that of excitement and hope. “Is she, is she alive in your world?” Wynonna sits forward, waiting on the edge of her seat for Waverly’s response.

Nicole sees Waverly hesitate. _Crap._

“I’m sorry, Wy. No, she isn’t.”

Wynonna sinks back down. Nicole thinks to herself that this is exactly what she didn’t want to happen.

“Okay, guys. Let’s focus. Waverly, what’s the last thing you remember?”

Now Waverly is the one who looks nervous to speak. “Okay this is gonna sound crazy.” They both look at her with a ‘seriously?’ face. She takes that as her invitation to continue. “I don’t know how much time has passed in the real world. My world. If it’s the same as here, then no time at all. In fact, according to the paper it’s the beginning of September of 2018. I was taken a few weeks after that. But, um—”

She goes quiet.

Nicole suddenly feels an anxious pull in her gut. She can sense a shift in Waverly. She’s staring at the table now, clearly nervous to continue. Nicole looks to Wynonna and they share a concerned look over their new…friend?

“I don’t remember. I was there for, maybe two weeks. Hiding for most of it. I never saw anyone else, but I could feel…”

“What?” Nicole asks.

“…Like I was being watched. If I was, they never showed themselves. I had built a small shelter near the edge of a river. I stayed there, scavenged what I could for food. Settled into a routine. There wasn’t much else to do. If I had been there longer, then I probably would have started exploring. Try to get out. Find a way home. But I hadn’t gotten past just surviving first. Then one day I was filling a bucket I had found on the riverside with water, and…things just go blank.” She looks helpless. Nicole sees that Waverly wishes she had more information.

“So, what should we do now?” Wynonna hasn’t let go of Waverly’s hand. Nicole feels that pang of jealousy again.

“I think it’s obvious.” The look on both Wynonna and Nicole’s faces tells Waverly that it is only obvious to her.

“We have to go to the Ghost River Triangle.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Waverly you need to slow down!” Nicole tries to keep up, but the small Earp girl keeps rushing forward, over the lip of each additional hill.

Waverly had convinced Nicole to drive her out to where Purgatory was supposed to be. Nicole had tried to warn her that no such town existed, but Waverly had been adamant. After having stared at the sign Nicole had happened across a few days prior, for at least ten minutes, Waverly had decided she had no choice but to start hiking into the depths of what used to be the Ghost River Triangle. Wynonna had been called in to work on a case with Jeremy at the hospital, so Nicole and Waverly had decided to head out by themselves.

“Waverly, we should come back tomorrow. It’s getting dark. We didn’t come prepared.” They really hadn’t. Waverly knows it. Nicole has a flashlight on her phone but nothing else.

“No, I don’t understand, Nicole. It has to be here. It has to.” Waverly marches forward, climbing the next hill. “Where is it!” She yells this into the wide expanse that opens up beyond the highest hill they had just summited.

“What are you looking for?” Nicole says this with a pant. Waverly is like a moving target, constantly falling out of Nicole’s line of sight beyond the next hill, desperate to find…something.

“The homestead, Nicole. I’m looking for the homestead.”

 

* * *

 

“What am I going to do?” Waverly watches as they pass by an empty stretch of land that used to house main street of the town she grew up in. Right there. That used to be Shorty’s. She knows this because she sees the same crooked boulder shaped like a fishing hook that she used to climb on as a child. The one that used to sit in front of the town’s bar. She remembers how Shorty had tried to have it removed. He had pulled the bumper of his truck attached to his winch clean off. They even brought in a bulldozer, but it never budged. Not an inch.

Waverly had been thankful the town failed. Up until Willa had pushed her off the top of it and she had scraped the palms of her hands. Luckily, that memory had been replaced years later by an impromptu picnic Nicole had planned for them. Her car hadn’t started that day. She had intended to take Waverly out to the edge of the woods with a blanket and some sandwiches. Vegan sandwiches, obviously. Waverly remembers how Nicole had parked in front of Shorty’s to pick her up after they had both finished their shifts. She remembers weird things about that day. Small things. Like the fact that Nicole had been wearing that blue sweater she liked so much. Her French braid was loose, like a long day of work had undone some of the threads. Waverly remembers having smiled wide at the red fly-aways before walking into Nicole’s arms and letting the itchy sweater embrace her. She never felt more safe than when her head tucked perfectly under the cop’s chin. Like a puzzle. Like a 1000-piece puzzle that most people don’t finish. Or one that someone’s nephew loses the last piece of and it sits there on a grandparent’s dining room table, forever incomplete. But no. The kind of 1000-piece-puzzle that Nicole and Waverly were, the Earp always felt like every piece was there. Nothing forced. As if it was brand new, straight from the box, never having been pulled apart to begin with after some puzzle-building machine in a factory had cut the lines. She remembers leaning her head back, giving her girlfriend room to meet her lips to her own and feeling that safe feeling through her whole body.

She remembers how Nicole had been so disappointed that her cruiser hadn’t started. The engine had been giving her trouble lately. So, Waverly had suggested they sit down on the boulder and have their picnic there. Watch as the sun lowered itself slowly behind the buildings of Purgatory. So, they sat, in front of Shorty’s. Watching the sky turn from a light blue to an orange that mirrored the hair in Nicole’s braid. As if the sky was simply filling with the light that shone off her head. She was just happy to spend time together. Even if it meant quietly eating tofu sandwiches as drunk patrons walked in and out of the bar’s creaking front door.

This was all too much. How could it be completely gone? Logically, she knows she’s in a different world. She knows things are going to be different. She knows she should get used to the feeling of disappointment every time she learns of some new alteration to the life she used to know. But for some reason Waverly had gotten it into her head that only her existence had been altered. That any differences in this world had taken place as a result of her not being born. She now realizes that had been a foolish idea. That fact should have been clear to her, she thinks, when Wynonna had told her that Willa had died in this world before Waverly had even been born. That should have told her that this timeline has little to do with her own. Wyatt Earp had never built upon the land and created Purgatory. Doc Holliday had never been put in that well. God. Had Bulshar’s curse even existed? Peacemaker? Why then are the Nicole and Wynonna of this world, so much like her own? There are differences, sure. But if something so drastic as an entire town never having been established can be true, how is it that the personalities of the people she loves so dearly, match those of the people that are so out of reach?

Waverly sees now that this is the hardest part. That these people. Jeremy. Her sister. The love of her goddamn life. They’re different in some ways. But for the most part, they are the same. They are helping her. With little to gain. They haven’t kicked her out. They haven’t admonished her insane stories. They’re here. But she can’t do a thing about it. She can’t hug her sister. She can’t kiss her love. She can’t be herself around the only people she’s ever been able to. She’s never experienced anything as frustrating as this feeling. It all feels so pointless. Aimless love. She has so much of it, but it’s misplaced. There’s nowhere to put it.

Waverly realizes now that she has made it out of the Garden, just to be tortured. Tortured with the pain of blank stares and awkward encounters with people she was never supposed to feel that way around.

“I don’t know, Waverly.” Nicole drives on the lonely highway back to Calgary. She glances over to Waverly every now and then, who is now wearing a worried crease in her brow in the passenger seat of her police cruiser. “Obviously, you can stay with us until we figure this out.”

“Thanks.” Waverly doesn’t look at Nicole when she says this. She’s too busy focusing her eyes on a far-off crinkle in the snow-capped mountains in the distance. She wonders if it’s a passage through the stony peaks. She wonders if people have ever ventured into that part of nature before. If explorers or people on some early trail marching West, in a time long-ago ever used that passage through a cold winter to reach a land they had envisioned would promise a life full of riches and gold. “Do you ever think…that maybe, it would just be easier if we could leave it all behind?" She see's Nicole's 'please go on, I have no idea what you're trying to say' face. "You know, modern-day politics and global xenophobia and the threat of being sucked into alternate realities. Sometimes I just want to go live in the woods with a maple leaf stem holding my hair back.” She smiles at how absurd she sounds. _Maple leaves, Waverly? Come on._ “Like…I don’t—”

“What?” Nicole knows she is spending far too much time looking over to Waverly than she should for someone driving at eighty miles an hour on a two-lane highway. But she can’t help but hang on every one of Waverly’s words.

“Like, I don’t know—like the fight is more trouble than it’s worth.”

Nicole pulls off to the side of the road, tires kicking up dust and clouding the stopped car in a thick stack of floating beige Alberta minerals. She puts the cruiser in park sits in silence for a moment. She turns in her seat, lifting her hand and lightly brings it just under the edge of Waverly’s chin, forcing her to look away from her window and into the redhead’s eyes.

“Listen. Even if things are hard right now, it’ll always be worth it, Waverly. Always.”

Nicole lets her hand linger a little too long. Long enough for Waverly to subconsciously close her eyes and lean into the touch. It’s warm. And electric. But also fleeting. She guesses that Nicole must feel it too because she pulls back abruptly. Waverly feels the loss. Wishes she could go back to a time where Nicole wouldn’t have moved her hand. Back to a place where moments of pure comfort wouldn’t have been only moments. They would have been expanses of time. Ones whose presence would be etched into Waverly’s skin.

Suddenly Waverly wonders what her Nicole is doing right now. Is she still searching for her? Are her and Wynonna getting along? They couldn't possibly be getting on the same way the Nicole and Wynonna of this world do.

“Do you think she’s forgotten me?”

“Who?” Nicole asks this but she knows who. She’s felt it the entire time Waverly has been here. She’s seen it in the way she sends glances her way. She’s felt it any time they’ve brushed up against each other. She knows.

It doesn’t change the fact that Waverly’s answer throws her for a loop. Like, a serious loop. The loop of all loops.

“You.” Waverly doesn’t break the eye contact. She can almost hear Nicole’s heart-rate pick up speed. The car is silent, except for the low buzz of the engine that still runs beyond the dash. And the pound of two hearts against the tinny zeal of two ribcages. 

“Who knows what’s happened to my world now that I’ve been brought to this one. Who knows what kind of effects that has on, I don’t know, the universe.”

“I might be speaking out of place here. But there’s no way she’s forgotten.”

“You don’t think so?” Waverly breathes in relief. Somehow, she trusts this Nicole. Even if she isn’t hers, she trusts her judgment in a way that is all too familiar. “I think I’d die if anything happened to her.”

She puts her hand on Waverly’s and allows her voice drop to almost a whisper. Soft. “Hey, everything’s going to be okay.” Waverly can see a glow of concern in Nicole’s eyes that hadn’t been there before. She’s not sure where it came from.

Waverly feels the warmth of Nicole’s thumb swiping over her own knuckles. It feels good. It feels safe. Then a different feeling comes over her. A feeling of incorrectness. She realizes this is wrong. It’s all wrong. Her heart speeds and panic takes hold. It beats into her chest and her throat, as if her bronchioles are constricting. She can’t breathe. This isn’t Nicole. She pulls her hand back and tucks it into her lap, out of reach.

“Sorry,” says Nicole. “I just thought—”

“You’re not my girlfriend. We’re not dating.” They’re not, Waverly tells herself. This is a stranger. Just because she looks and acts like Nicole doesn’t mean she is the same woman she has known for so long. Because she isn’t. This is someone else.

“I know.” Nicole brings her hands back to the steering wheel. She looks apologetic.

Waverly still feels the tightness in her throat. Like there’s a snake twisting it closed. “I need some air.”

“Waverly!” Nicole yells after the other girl as she opens the cruiser’s passenger door and starts walking into a field. Nicole turns the car off and runs after her. When she finally catches up to her she sees that Waverly is crouching down in the dirt, holding a shiny piece of metal in her small fingers. “What is that?”

“I’ve seen this before.” Waverly stands and holds out the necklace to Nicole, showing her the set of keys linked to a long dangling chain the shines in the reflection of the setting sun. Nicole lets the heaviest bottom part of the necklace settle into her palm. She can see there is an inscription on one of the keys that must be the source of Waverly’s excitement.

“Is that Greek?” Nicole points to the inscription.

“Yes.”

“We need to find someone who knows ancient languages. It’s beautiful.”

“You just did.” Waverly gestures to herself.

“Oh, wow. Okay. What does it say?” Waverly smirks at the expression on Nicole's face. She's clearly impressed.

Waverly starts laughing. The tension of the moment leading up to now finally leaves her body, giving her a sense of peace that she hasn’t felt in a long time. She knows this necklace. She remembers seeing her sister wear it countless times.

“It says, ‘Athena.’”

“Athena?”

“Yep. You know what this means?”

Nicole stares at her blankly and shivers. “What does it mean?”

“It means you were right. It is worth it." 

Nicole eyes her curiously, still clearly out of the loop.

"It means I can find my way home.”


	10. in the stillness of remembering, what you had, and what you lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wayhaught start to understand the magnitude of their situation. First part of the chapter is a bit heavy, did my best to lighten it up after that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> slight trigger warning for violence and general creepiness in this chapter

Four weeks go by. Four long weeks of three new roommates settling into a new routine of languid familiarity. Wynonna comes and goes. Nicole barely sees her. Between her schedule at the hospital and Wynonna’s caseload with Jeremy, they say all of fifteen words to each other in the span of twenty-eight days. She figures Wynonna must be working on an important case because she knows she never gets this quiet without a reason. So, they don’t. Talk about it. Or much else for that matter. Any time Wynonna is home she spends most of it with her sister. Her _real_ sister, Nicole bitterly thinks, completely aware of how juvenile the thought is. And she has it often, basically, any time she sees them together. It’s not that she’s not happy for Wynonna. She is. Or at least, she’s trying to be. But the truth is she’s never felt more off-kilter in her entire life. Not even when Jack died.

The only person that has ever been able to stabilize that, is busy drinking and excitedly burying herself in the smelly old books that have piled up on their living room floor, thanks to their newest house guest. Nicole considers her growing resentment towards Waverly to have nothing to do with an unspoken fear that she is taking her best friend away from her, just for that same friend to inevitably be devastated when she leaves.

_No_ , she thinks, _nothing at all_.

Waverly also comes and goes. Mostly to the library. She sleeps on the couch at night, wakes up early, folds the sheets and blankets she cocoons herself in on a nightly basis and places them neatly on the edge of the sofa’s right arm and then leaves before Nicole even wakes. Nicole thinks she’s avoiding her. She assumes Waverly can sense her own coldness towards her. Neither of them talk about the fact that they still don’t know for sure what world this is. They don’t talk about the fact that any time they’re alone in the apartment together, Nicole can feel the heat of Waverly’s eyes on her. Watching her as she feeds her cat. As she eats a plain, Greek yogurt. As she closes the blinds at night. And she almost always feels the prickle of Waverly’s accidental gaze when she gets out of the shower after a long day at the hospital.

Of course, there’s no fan to ventilate the only bathroom the three of them share, so any time Nicole opens the door, a wild fog of thick steam envelopes her as she walks in a warm, damp towel across the hallway to her bedroom door. Sometimes she thinks it follows her like a gloomy raincloud from an old cartoon. A cloud that just barely holds back a downpour of the alluded-to, but never talked about possibility that this world, and all the memories she’s made in her life, all the pain and loss and joy she’s felt, might be an illusion. A “spell,” as Waverly calls it.

She silently hopes, every single day, that the other theory holds true. That this is not Waverly’s world. That this is indeed a world that Waverly refers to as a “fixed universe,” one that hasn’t been manipulated, but is in fact separate from where the Earp girl originates.

Nicole feels zero guilt at this wish. She goes to just about no lengths to hide the fact that she hopes to God this isn’t Waverly’s universe. That she isn’t Waverly’s Nicole. That Waverly is indeed far away from the only home she’s ever known. That Waverly is in fact trapped in an extended, hell vacation with no promising leads on how to return except for a lone, key necklace that neither Wynonna nor Nicole recognize.

Nicole knows she should feel some type of weighty regret over wishing Waverly is completely alone. If someone had asked Nicole a month ago, she would have said she did feel pity for her. When they were driving through the empty countryside of what Waverly called “the Ghost River Triangle,” and she had found the necklace, she had admitted to herself, yes, something about Waverly Earp made her sad. Made her long to see the stranger smile.

But that sentiment evaporated the second she realized what it would mean if she were to witness Waverly happy. Happy at the idea of her possibly being in the correct world, afterall.

Nicole knows she can’t allow anything but distrust and misdirected anger towards Waverly to take hold. That when she hears muffled sobs in the pitch dark of night through the paper-thin walls, she can only allow herself a self-imposed hardness. Why? Because admitting she feels something for this lonely girl, admitting sorrow on behalf of her situation, giving just an inch of latitude in the direction of feeling empathy, would, in Nicole’s mind, be an acceptance of the fallacy of her own existence.

It would somehow mean that her world, her history, is the lie. A sick joke where Jack never lived, and Jack never died. Where Nicole and Wynonna hadn’t become best friends, and Gus and Nedley hadn’t become the surrogate parents that had set her on a track they could all be proud of.

No. Better to see her sad. A sad Waverly means she’s still separated from her alternate reality. And a separate reality? Well, to Nicole, that means hers is still valid.

She certainly feels _nothing_ when she goes to the kitchen at 2 am for a glass of water and sees the small girl on the couch mumbling in her sleep in a fit of bad dreams. Nicole swears she feels _nothing_ when she silently joins her in the living room in the evenings and discreetly watches her take careful notes on a yellow, lined notepad about the laws of physics and the plausibility of parallel universes. And, of course, she tells herself that she feels absolutely _nothing_ _at all_ when Waverly scrunches these two very specific lines in the middle of her brow together when she can’t figure out the difference between a transversable wormhole and a two-way wormhole.

Yep, _nothing at all._

Despite the nearly cruel demeanor Nicole takes on, it doesn’t stop Waverly from going to her in that same pitch black when Nicole has nightmares of her own. Because she does. Almost every night.

On principal alone, Nicole pretends she doesn’t hear her creep into her room after she has startled herself awake from the same blue dream that haunts her. She doesn’t let her body so much as twitch at the comforting feel of a small but firm hand silently wiping away sweat from her brow. Nicole knows how dangerous it would be to admit to herself, let alone anyone else that it’s just about the only thing that holds her together. The only moment of comfort she can count on.

After a few minutes, the imprint of Waverly’s hand on her face—well…it starts to burn. White hot. She usually feigns an unconscious need to roll over, a casual adjustment for the sake of a limb that may be falling asleep, perhaps. At least that’s what she hopes Waverly assumes. But she knows it’s because if she doesn’t escape the spreading heat of the contact, she’ll break.

So, she twists. Pretends to turn away from the soothing gesture in her ‘sleep,’ so as to not embarrass them both. Waverly almost always sits on the bed’s edge for another minute or two to make sure Nicole has truly settled back into a deep sleep before standing and going back to her spot in the living room.

One night, her eyes open. Nicole is lying on her back in the center of her bed. Face to the ceiling. In an instant she can feel it. That feeling. The one where she knows she’s in a dream, but her entire body is paralyzed. Half-awake, half-asleep.

It’s the kind of sleep paralysis that even the Bent-Neck Lady would rather not stomach. Somehow, even in her stupor, she thinks to herself that watching that damn Netflix show a few nights ago was a huge fucking mistake. Because the fear she feels right now? The absolute terror that comes with being able to think and feel but not be able to move even the tiny muscles that turn your eyes inward? Yeah. It’s the scariest sixty seconds of Nicole Haught’s generally fearless life.

The bed dips. She feels the weight in her chest lift just slightly of the thought of the safety she feels in the presence of Waverly Earp.

A hand starts stroking her cheek. But—wait. It’s wrong. Callused. Cold. Far too large and clumsy to be Waverly’s. Nicole shifts her eyes, the muscles behind the sockets regaining motor control. She focuses in on the face a foot from hers. Her heart lurches. She feels the weight return to her chest like an anvil slowly being lowered atop her sternum, pushing her whole body into the bed. She tries to scream but she can’t. She’s mute. No sound comes out when she makes the motion with her throat and vocal cords.

Nicole feels the hot rotten breath from the man’s face on her own. He strokes her cheek, rough fingers forcing tears into her eyes. She tries to careen her neck in the other direction but can’t. His demonic red eyes set under scarred eyebrows bore into hers, telling her _I know, I know. I’m here. Yes. I’m here. I’m real._

More control returns. She pushes back, shoving him with her shoulder so he’s forced to the floor. She looks on, now standing. Towering above him, she is able to see his brown beard with unnatural white patches covering the lower half of his face.

He laughs and looks up, red eyes not failing to communicate the same telepathic thought from before. The eyes say _I know, I know. We are the same._

Nicole’s heart is racing. She looks to his beard and suddenly understands.

_It’s you,_ she thinks.

This pause allows him his chance. He jumps from the floor, hands flying to the top of her head like a magnet. His two thumbs dig with fury into her two eyes. She can feel the pressure. The pain is searing and deep and she thinks it will never end. She also feels metal on one of his fingers digging into her scalp where he holds on tightly. She doesn’t have to see it to know that it’s that same ugly ring with the red stone. She screams at the pain, the sound finally escaping her throat and filling the silent space of her bedroom, traveling to the hallway beyond her door and echoing throughout her entire world.

Then she wakes.

 

* * *

 

“Nicole! Nicole! Wake up!” Waverly shakes her shoulders after shooing Calamity Jane from the bed. She had rushed in at the sound of Nicole screaming to find the cat lying lazily on her chest, weighing it down.

“Nicole. It’s okay. Shhh. It’s okay.” Waverly caresses her forehead, leaning forward so she can soothingly ease Nicole awake with quiet whispers. “You’re safe.” Waverly feels a hand on her shoulder. It’s Wynonna. She moves out of the way, so her sister can take her place at Nicole’s side.

Nicole opens her eyes and sits up.

“It was him,” she says, still panting away the dream.

“Who was who, babygirl?”

“The man in my dream. He was trying to—to blind me, I think? It was the man from the hospital.” She looks at Wynonna. “The one I told you about, Wy. The patient on the psych unit.”

“Shhh. It was just a dream.” She tries to sooth Nicole. Waverly can see its not working. Nicole is still extremely agitated.

“No, Wynonna. It felt so real.” She’s clearly holding back tears. Seeing her eyes well up causes Waverly to feel two things. The first is sorrow for Nicole, this Nicole. Waverly can see that she’s been going through something difficult the past few weeks. She doesn’t talk much to either of her roommates. When she does, it’s with this false bravado that Waverly has learned to recognize as a front to fend off outwardly dealing with her problems. She also can recall that Nicole has nightmares almost every night. Waverly isn’t sure if Nicole has noticed all the times that she sneaks in to make sure she’s okay. She hopes not. She knows it probably crosses so many boundaries that both have put into place for a reason.

The second emotion she feels now is anger at herself. Because in this moment, she hasn’t felt more frustration at—either herself or her situation, she can’t decide which—for the fact that her Nicole is still out there alone. She’s alone and Waverly isn’t there to sooth her nightmares or lull her back to sleep or quell the pain she knows she’s probably feeling in being so far from each other.

And then it occurs to her. Waverly realizes the most infuriating thing. The idea that this could, in fact, be Nicole, assuming they are all under a spell or a poisonous hallucinogen or a boogie-man’s trippy voodoo.

And here Waverly is with her stupid self-imposed rules that say she _absolutely positively_ can't care or comfort this person that is clearly in pain—at least not in the light of day because she doesn’t want to betray that same person in the event that it isn’t her Nicole.

It’s so terribly confusing that Waverly can’t help but scream inside her own _stupid_ head and yell _FUDGENUGGETS_ at the thought of not reaching forward and pressing a calming kiss to her love’s forehead and at the same time yelling _NO! DON’T, WHAT IT IF ISNT HER AND YOU BETRAY YOUR NICOLE?! GAH THIS IS STUPID YOURE STUPID YOU DUMB ASSHOLE, MAKE A DECISION._

Waverly decides the only solution is to find the solution. She has to, she thinks. This is too dang hard.

Too dang painful.

“Nicole, have you visited this patient recently? Is that why you dreamt about him?” Wynonna asks.

“Not since—before _she_ got here.” Waverly feels the sting in the way Nicole says ‘ _she_ ’ without looking in her direction. “He said “she’s on her way,” like he knew she was coming. I’m sorry. I forgot all about it until now. I meant to go back and talk to him, but I completely forgot.”

Waverly completely forgets about using her soft, sweet voice and instead feels a low fury start to bubble up.

“Did you?” Waverly interjects roughly. She’s not sure what’s come over her, but she can’t help feeling like Nicole isn’t being completely forthright about the only other piece of evidence that might help her get home.

“Of course.” Nicole shakes her head and drops her jaw a bit, mostly in shock that Waverly doesn’t believe _her_ of all people.

“Because, it’s kind of odd that I’ve been working for _hours_ on end, every single day for _weeks_ , coming up completely empty, and there’s apparently someone you’ve known of this entire time that knows something about me being here?” Waverly raises her eyebrows expectantly, in a way that says she’s angry with Nicole for “forgetting” vital information but also kind of relieved she actually has a new direction to go in with her research.

Waverly is about to continue with what is becoming an actual tirade but stops when she sees that there are actual tears streaming down Nicole’s face.

Waverly can only force a few words to tumble out in response before shame completely takes over. “I’m—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

She rushes out, leaving Wynonna to wipe the tears from the redhead’s eyes. Waverly hears the door close behind her and supposes Wynonna has decided to stay with Nicole for the night. She doesn’t blame her. That was too much, she thinks.

_I’ll have to apologize tomorrow, if she’ll let me_.

Waverly goes back to the couch. She puts on her first blanket, then the second, then the third. She decides that she only needs a fourth layer as opposed to her typical five, seeing as she can’t shake the extra heat that emanates from her body because it is currently abuzz with new excitement and anticipation at the thought of a new lead.

The Athena necklace had quickly turned to a dead-end. It had sparked hope in her at first, especially at the impossibility of it randomly being found in a field outside what should have been Purgatory. But she had figured it to be a good sign, at the very least. To her, it was a sign that if, Waverly Earp, a product of another universe, can end up in the wrong one, and a darn necklace—a product of the same, other universe—also can turn up in the same, wrong one, then maybe passage between the two worlds, (if in fact it is another world she comes from and not this one), is possible.

And if that is true? Well, maybe a way home can be found.

But after weeks of researching any book she could find on alternate realities and coming up empty, Waverly had started to worry she had gotten ahead of herself.

Learning of this patient that foretold of her arrival? Well that seems to be breathing new life into one Waverly Earp.

 

* * *

 

 

The first thing Nicole Haught sees when she walks into the living room at 7:02 am the next morning is Waverly Earp with a noticeable line of drool trailing down her chin. One arm is tangled up and behind her head while the other hand is clutching tightly to, what Nicole surmises is an _absurd_ number of blankets. Nicole can also see—something she must have missed last night in her panic—smooth definition etched into the lines of Waverly’s arms. The spaghetti straps of her tank top are only barely digging into her tan shoulders. Nicole wants to look away, but something about the red marks from where the straps must have been sitting earlier in the night, just to the side of where they sit now, are, well, mesmerizing, for reasons Nicole couldn’t possibly explain. It turns out that everything about Waverly is mesmerizing. From her toned arms to the evenness of her breathing to the way the drool adorably pools just below her face to the weird-as-all-hell smirk she wears when she sleeps soundly on one of the most uncomfortable couches Nicole has ever known. Nicole sits down in the chair next to the sofa, scooting it closer so she can reach out and push some stray hairs to the side that are sticking to the drool on Waverly’s cheek.  

Everything Nicole has tried to enforce in the last few weeks—all the resentment and fury and irritation she’s been harboring towards this girl—who, in reality is just trying her best in a shitty situation—well, it all falls away. Nicole wonders if its out of guilt that she’s able to let go of it all in this moment. Is it because some of what Waverly said last night was true? Is it because she forgot about the psych patient on purpose?

“Hey,” Nicole says quietly.

“Hi,” Waverly says quietly.

“Guess what?”

“Hmm?” Waverly lets out with a soft hum, eyes still closed. Nicole can’t tear her eyes away from the yellow light beams from the partially closed blinds that are dancing across Waverly’s closed eyelids.

“I think from now on…” Nicole starts, and pauses as she allows time for Waverly to open her eyes and start sitting up to listen more intently. She can tell that Waverly understands what she’s about to say is extremely important.

“What?” Waverly asks.

“From now on…” she continues and then lets out in one breathe with a wide smile, “that we should just pull the trigger on designing some kind of drool-catching contraption that can stay, I don’t know, attached to your face while you sleep.”

Waverly’s eyes go wide and the biggest smile Nicole has seen her make in four weeks’ time plasters itself over her face. “Hey!!” She doesn’t stop laughing as she grabs her pillow and throws it at Nicole, rustling her red hair in the process.

“I don’t know. I’m thinking maybe some rubber bands, and, like, we cut a water bottle and hot-glue it all together. Do you think it’ll work?” Nicole’s coy smile is beating a path across her own face now.

Waverly doesn’t respond, just smiles wider.

“No, no you’re right,” Nicole continues. “Definitely superglue.” She hadn’t realized until now how good it would feel to put this girl into a good mood. But it does. It feels good. It feels damn good, she thinks.

“Nicole Haught!” Waverly says with an upturn of her lips, but Nicole sees the smile fade as quickly as her own name comes out of Waverly’s mouth. Nicole witnesses in slow motion as Waverly retreats into herself. Joy gone.

“Hey,” she reaches out and puts a hand on Waverly’s knee. “It’s okay. I think I get it.”

“You do?”

“I think so. Listen, Waverly. We both have people we care about, right? You want to do right by…your Nicole. And I need to protect Wynonna.” Nicole realizes in an instant how that sounds based on the sight of Waverly’s face and tries to backtrack. “Oh, God. No, Waves, not like _that._ She’s like my sister. I swear.” Why Nicole feels the need to clarify this, well, that evades her completely. Waverly seems equally confused by Nicole’s need to set the record straight. Not that she’s complaining. Nicole can tell this new knowledge is putting Waverly’s mind at ease.

“My point is. I think you were right. Last night, I mean.”

“Nuh uh, Nicole. I was so far out of line. I was an absolute jackass. I’m so so so sorry.”

“No, it’s fine, I promise.” Nicole is giving her best, _truly its okay_ face. She still has things to atone for herself and she’s going to be damned if she lets this girl think she’s the only one that’s sorry. “In all honestly, I think maybe I accidentally forgot to tell you about the patient was because I subconsciously didn’t want to you leave.”

Waverly looks dumbstruck.

“I mean—for Wynonna. I didn’t want you to leave Wynonna. I think she’s really into the idea of having an actual sister.” Waverly’s face is apologetic. Nicole can see the other girl senses the hurt she feels at having to share a person she’s never had to before. “I’m really sorry, Waverly.”

For the first time Waverly looks down at the hand on her knee and sees Bulshar’s ring sitting perfectly on Nicole’s left ring finger. She reaches down and touches it, lightly brushing her fingers against Nicole’s knuckles.

“You’re still wearing this?” Nicole sees something in Waverly’s face shift when she says this.

“Yeah. Um. I couldn’t get it off, actually.”

Waverly chuckles to herself as she continues to caress the ring. “Do you mind if I tell you something about Nicole? Um. My Nicole.”

Nicole looks unsure at first, but gives in. It couldn’t hurt at this point, she thinks. “Sure.”

“So, I proposed before I was taken.” Whatever Nicole thought Waverly was going to say, it sure as hell isn’t this.

“You did?”

“Yeah.” She smiles. It’s the kind of smile that makes Nicole glad Waverly is sharing. “It’s sort of a sad story honestly. My father had just been killed by this guy, Bobo, who had basically been screwing with my family for dang near my entire life. Ever since I was a kid. We were gearing up for this big fight and I didn’t know if I was going to lose anyone else I cared about…so I asked her.”

Nicole feels like she might cry. _Wow. Do not do this. Do not do this._ She crushes the urge and instead asks, “What did she say?”

Waverly laughs. “Well, she sort of said no.”

“And that’s funny because…?” Nicole laughs too.

“Because it’s so… _her.”_ Waverly looks to Nicole, smiles, then looks back down to the ring, still rubbing the stone clean with her thumb. “She wore the ring for a few hours, then gave it back. Told me to ask her again when we ‘aren’t under the threat of dying by the hand of a super creepy demon guy with a killer fashion sense.’”

Nicole laughs. Then realizes. “Wait, Waverly.” She pulls her hand back and stands. It’s not lost on her she’s doing the pacing thing that is usually reserved for one Waverly Earp. “Please, please do not tell me that your engagement ring with all those really important, epic, endgame feelings associated with it, is literally stuck on my ring finger.”

Waverly starts smiling and Nicole instantly knows. The brunette responds, “I mean. If you want me to lieeee—”

“WAVERLY.” Nicole wants to be mad, but there’s just too much to do today. She chooses to find the whole thing ridiculously funny instead. “Wow. Well. Okay.”

_Change the subject, Nicole. Because this ring isn’t going anywhere._

“Hey, I want to take you somewhere,” Nicole says.

“Um…okay?”

“Get dressed. It’s probably time I introduce you to someone.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Wow, Nicole. This is so romantic. If I had known that you wanted to take me to the psych ward, I would have dressed up,” Waverly deadpans, probably because she knows full-well they’re about to meet this mysterious ‘patient.’

“Hush,” Nicole rolls her eyes and tries to hide a smirk as she leads Waverly down the quiet hall to room 42. She glances out of the corner of her eye at the nurses on the unit tending to a patient and casually straightens her collar on her uniform’s shirt.

“Relax, Nicole. Nobody is paying attention.” Waverly can’t lie to herself. She is 100% amused by how frazzled it’s making Nicole to break the rules.

Nicole stops in front of what Waverly guesses is the correct room and the Earp takes the initiative to open the door. When she walks inside ahead of Nicole, and sees Bobo Del Rey strapped to a bedframe, alive, she finds herself wondering if your ribs can break by the thrashing of a fast-enough heartbeat.

“You—”

Nicole approaches her side and sees the look of horror and recognition on Waverly’s face. “Waves, do you know him?” Her own heart starts racing now.

“Yes.”

“Who is he?”

Waverly shakes her head in abhorrent disbelief. “A man I killed.”


	11. Lindisfarne I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Consider this Part 1 of two chapters that I was going to write as one, but it ended up too long, so I split them. Things are starting to really move forward and it's going to be a bit of rollercoaster. Get ready.
> 
> also.... so so so sorry for what I'm about to do

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I recommend listening to James Blake's Lindisfarne I while reading this chapter.

“My Angel.” He stares to the ceiling, as if he’s thanking the heavens above for Waverly’s arrival, she thinks. _Nah_. _He’s strapped down on his back and has no choice_. If she weren’t in a fit of rage, she would giggle at her own ego, but the anger is proving more potent than anything. It is also clear to her that he recognizes her immediately.

“Okay, hold your horses, Cowboy. I may be an Angel but I’ll never be yours.” Waverly steps forward, still in shock at seeing Bobo here, an emotion that nowhere near compares to the anger she feels. She observes as his eyes widen in admiration. “Yeah, that’s right, I still say badass things.” She nods her head and quirks her eyebrow as if it’s completely obvious. Out of the corner of Waverly’s eye she almost sees Nicole smile in response to her own confidence. She almost smiles herself at this but then remembers where she is. _Now is not the time, Waverly._

Nicole makes her classic, _wait, what?!_ face when it hits her what she just said and glances from Bobo to Waverly. She puckers her lips in concentration. _Angel? Must just be a colloquial expression…_

“I’m not here to play, Bobo. How in the hell did a shit-ticket like you crawl your way out of, well, the friggin’ permanence of death?” Waverly approaches the head of the bed. She crouches down so her face is next to his. She realizes he doesn’t scare her in the slightest. Not anymore.

He clicks his teeth in response.

Waverly rolls her eyes. “You know, nobody actually gets why you do that,” she gestures to her own teeth. “It’s just weird, man. How does it feel to be a caricature of yourself?”

He smiles.

_Okay, it feels good, apparently? Freakin’ weirdo._

Nicole steps forward to stand at his feet. “She’s right, you know.” She leans in as if to interject into a conversation she isn’t a part of. “The teeth thing isn’t as scary as you think it is…,” she steps backwards, “but, carry on,” she says, holding up her hands briefly in a ‘please continue’ motion, as if she only had that one point to contribute.

Bobo shifts his eyes to Nicole. “Hmmm…I’ve always liked this one for you, little Earp.” He enunciates the ‘p’ with a pluck of his lips. “She…tantalizes.”

Waverly’s blood boils. “You may be a patient here, but that’s just creepy and inappropriate and I—I should really have Nicole here report you to—to… an Ethics Committee—or something, for harassing an officer!”

“An Ethics Committee?” Nicole can’t hide the upturn of one side of her mouth when she looks at Waverly.

“Yeah, that’s right. An Ethics Committee!”

“Report all you want. It won’t change the fact that this world is wrong, Waverly Earp.” There’s that pluck of the p again.

“What do you mean? Bobo, how are you alive?” Waverly’s heart starts beating a tad faster. She knows she can’t trust him, but the fact that he’s here and he knows her and he’s saying this world is _false_ makes her wonder…

“Oh, sweet, sweet girl. I’ll tell you.” He shifts his eyes so as to draw Waverly closer. She’s apprehensive, but at this point she knows he’s the only thing standing between her and setting things right. She has to play his game. She leans in, her hands clenching the side rail of the bed until all the blood leaves her knuckles, making them ghost-white. “But I’ll need a show of…” _Here it comes,_ Waverly thinks. “…faith.”

“Bobo Del Rey, I’d rather die than give you anything you desire. You—you killed him.” Her voice breaks. She’s annoyed at herself. She desperately wants to be the strong one here. She wants to show she’s the one in control. The one with the power. All this man has ever done is take away her agency. She can’t stand it. She can’t stand him. She hates him, she thinks. And she knows that _Waverly Earp_ does not hate.

Nicole inches closer to Waverly’s side, leaving her place at the foot of the bed and purposefully brushing her left shin against the kneeling girls hip, just to show her she’s there.

That she’s not alone.

Waverly feels reinvigorated by the presence. The dim hospital backlight behind the bed flickers, giving a menacing air to Waverly’s next words.

“You know, Bobo. When you asked me to kill you—,”  she pauses and thinks for a second, “I thought that I would, that I would feel nothing. I was nervous that I would feel nothing. That taking a man’s life would only make me feel empty.” Nicole watches Waverly in awe.

The smile on Bobo’s face disappears completely. Only a lusty deliberation crosses his face as he hangs tightly to every word Waverly breathes out.

“You want to know what it felt like Bobo?” Waverly waits. She wants him to beg for it.

He’s shaking. Bobo Del Rey is shaking. The tremble in his eyelids tells Waverly he’s actually holding back tears. One falls. It slides down his cheek. “Yes.”

Waverly smiles. “It felt good, Bobo. Feeling your—soul, or what’s left of it—feeling it drain…,” she shakes her head in disbelief. “It felt damn near perfect.”

He’s speechless. Until she stands. When she lets the shadow of her stance fall over him, taking on the appearance of a much taller woman—because, lets be real, this girl if teeny—he speaks.

“Spring me from this place, and I’ll tell you everything your heart desires. Everything.”

Waverly presses her tongue to the inside of her cheek and looks to Nicole to see if such a thing is possible.

“We can’t, Waverly.” Nicole says firmly. Waverly is torn. She can’t allow Bobo to walk out of here as a free man. She can’t just let him loose into society like that. Nicole could lose her job for just _being_ here right now. She can’t do that to her. No, they have to find another way to get the truth out of him. But they need leverage.

Waverly knows she needs time to find it.

She gestures to Nicole that it’s time they go. She turns to walk out, Nicole right behind her. Before they cross the threshold of the doorway, Bobo predictably causes her to pause in her steps with a question.

The question isn’t one Waverly expects. In fact, it’s a question that, in an instant, sucks the air out of her lungs, the way an industrial vacuum can so leisurely suction up dirt.

“She doesn’t remember yet, does she?” His rough throaty question bleeds through the air and into Waverly’s skin. She knows the second he says it who he’s talking about. It floods her veins and all she can do is look at Bobo in incredulous skepticism. When she shifts her focus to Nicole’s eyes—who Waverly thinks might also need fresh air in her lungs because a quiet gasp fills the room, and it comes straight from the redhead’s lips—all she can do is stare, searching. All she finds in the brown eyes that start to fill with tears is fear. Waverly knows its fear that everything she’s known her entire life has been a lie. “Don’t worry, my Angel. She will.” This time he looks straight at Nicole, confirming to them both what only a moment ago was an implication.

“Nicole, I—he could be lying.” Waverly secretly hopes he isn’t. The idea that this really could be Nicole Rayleigh Haught?

_Oh my god._

Her Nicole.

It’s a punch, that’s for sure. And Waverly lets herself be pummeled with it.

All Waverly can do is hold back her tears at the prospect.

But 1) She knows better than to take anything Bobo Del Rey says at face value and 2) The look on Nicole’s face…as if Waverly is witnessing the redhead’s heart drop to the pit of her gut in slow motion…well, she decides she needs to hold back the joy and hope that rushes through her. Not when Nicole’s world may have just been turned completely lopsided.

To say that Nicole Haught runs through the door faster than a cheetah pouncing on it’s prey, would be a bit of an understatement. She leaves Waverly in the dust.

“Give me one reason why I should believe you,” she says, cognizant of the fact that she already does—she believes him.

“Because, Waverly Earp. Not believing in something doesn’t stop it from being true.”

The small brunette makes one last look to Bobo whose two corners of his knowing mouth are practically to his ears, and closes the door behind her, walking down the hall lost in a whirlwind of thoughts.

As she exits the unit and leaves the hospital and walks outside to feel the cold, October wind crisp against her cheeks, drying the tears that remain, it hits her. The air she’s breathing. The blue sky above her. The tree with leaves that scatter at the trunk. This is her world. Every bit of it. It’s hers. It slams into her and forces the cold air she took in not a moment before to escape from her lungs once again.

 

It’s a thought.

 

A realization.

 

_I’m home_.

 

* * *

 

 

Wynonna swears she sees Waverly Earp walking on the streets of Calgary as she drives back to the apartment from her meeting with Agent Dolls. She shakes her head and laughs as she speaks to an empty truck. “Earp, you’ve got to stop drinking triple espressos after 5pm.”

When she arrives home, Wynonna pours herself a tall glass of beer from the microbrewery growler she’s been saving for the end of a long-ass day like this one. She sets it down on the kitchen table, watching as the droplets of condensation merge together and run across the tip of her thumb that curls around the glass’s side. After taking a sip and savoring the transient burn of the carbonation on her tongue, Wynonna pulls out her casefile from her black messenger bag that sits in the chair next to her. She really hates working on cases at home, but she also accepts the fact that even she’s not stubborn enough to sit in her and Jeremy’s P.I. office while it gets fumigated. _Damn termites._ Wynonna hates termites.

The manila folder falls open with the help of her fingers, still damp from the IPA. She spreads the low resolution pictures out on the table and taps her hand against her lap in concentration. Wynonna has, up until this point, counted thirteen people that continue to appear within the confines of Calgary General without passing through any of the known entry points that are documented on the blueprints. Wynonna can’t for the life of her figure out where they’re coming from. Wynonna recalls that Agent Dolls seemed just as stumped when she had met with him earlier. The mysterious Agent still hasn’t shared much about the case with Wynonna, but she can’t help but feel there is more to it than a simple matter of unwelcome trespassers. Something else has to be going on, she thinks. The faces in the pictures are continually undetectable in the facial recognition software Jeremy runs. They aren’t seen leaving or entering the building. Could there be some kind of underground tunnel system? It this a drug cartel ring that the Agent has been tasked with uncovering?

Even though the questions that continue to pile up are frustrating, Wynonna is glad to have the distraction. Any time her mind wanders to Nicole, concern wrinkles into her brow. The worry she feels for her, given the last few weeks, is intense, especially after last night. It had taken longer than usual to calm her friend back into a quiet slumber. Over the past two decades of friendship, Wynonna recalls that they’ve both learned, _techniques,_ to bring the other back from the ledge. When it’s Nicole having a nightmare—which used to be far more frequent, when they were teenagers especially—the Earp knows all she needs to do is lie next to Nicole in the dark and talk to her about—well, anything at all. Sometimes she’ll rant about the places she visited during her time abroad, countries she still hasn’t been to that she hopes she can afford someday, or other times, she’ll drone on about the complicated nature of her relationship with Doc or the difference in ingredients between Coke and Pepsi. Truly, anything. It usually works too.

But last night. Wynonna could see that her dream had really shaken her. It makes her feel guilty for being absent. She knows she has been. But this thing with Waverly, figuring it all out, it’s become so important to her. She nods to herself in recognition that she’s been a shit friend. She needs to be more present for Nicole.

Who’s to say she can’t help both Waverly _and_ Nicole?

Before she has a chance to decide, the front door swings open in a gush of hallway air, and she sees her little sister standing in the threshold, face wet and eyes puffy. Her chest is heaving and it doesn’t take Wynonna more than a second to stand and open her arms as Waverly rushes forward into them.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, Wynonna. Nothing.” Just for a second, Waverly is going to let herself believe she is hugging her Wynonna. She lets her strong arms wrap around her and she thinks _these are my sister’s arms._

_This is Wynonna._

The way Waverly smiles haunts her maybe-sister. _She’s learned something new,_ Wynonna thinks.

“Nicole texted me this morning that you guys were going to go to the hospital. Did you find out something useful?” She watches as Waverly picks at the fuzz on her pink sweater as she is directed by the smaller girl to take a seat at the table. It’s a sweater Wynonna had leant her in addition to all the other clothes Waverly has borrowed since she arrived, considering she still hadn’t gone shopping for items of her own. _It’s probably that whole ‘not having money or a job or an identity’ thing._ Wynonna refocuses and notices how nervous Waverly is. This is big, she thinks.

“Wy, we don’t know anything for certain. But—” _Oh god._ “there’s a possibility that this isn’t a separate world. It’s possible things are just—wrong.”

Wynonna tries to let this sink in. “So, what does that mean?” It’s not going great.

“It means that—this world, it’s been changed. Things aren’t supposed to be like it is. It means a lot of things.”

Wynonna sort of wants to vomit. Her words are just barely tumbling out at this point, thankfully, she thinks, they’re not accompanied by actual vomit. Not yet, at least. 

“So, you’re saying that I really am your sister? I mean, I know Jeremy’s DNA test already confirmed that, and that wasn’t even a surprise to me to begin with…but you’re saying I’m actually—your big sister?”

“It’s possible. But this guy, this Bobo, he’s a known liar, Wynonna. He plays games and he screws with our lives. He always has. It’s fun to him." She pauses. There's an air of hesitation to what she says next and it worries Wynonna. "But he also knew who I was. He’s from my world. He remembers everything I remember. And I—I just want you to be prepared if it turns out that—”

“—That everything I know is a lie.” Wynonna feels a burn behind her eye sockets. _Nope. Nope. I don’t cry. Stupid dumb asshole. You don’t cry. Don’t be a dumb asshole that cries asshole tears, like an asshole._

“Again, its not certain. But it’s possible.” Wynonna sees it in Waverly’s eyes. _She believes him. Oh my god she believes him._

“Wait, Waverly. It was you. I saw you walking home earlier.” She stands and looks to the open front door expectantly.

“Where’s Nicole?”

“Um. I think she kind of—ditched me at the hospital. I don’t think she’s handling this well."

“Can you blame her?” Wynonna quips. Waverly smiles.

“Not really, no. This is so stupidly complicated. I know that. Even if she’s my—even she’s _her._ I know how ridiculously complicated this is.”

“Yeah, I know.” Wynonna rubs Waverly’s shoulder for a moment before grabbing her keys and turning towards the front door.

“Should I come with you?” Waverly asks.

“I think it might be a good idea if I talk to her on my own. You understand, right?”

Waverly nervously puts her hands in her lap and gives out a big sigh, “yeah, I do.”

“Okay, I’ll be back in a bit.” 

“Wait, you don’t even know where she is!” Waverly calls out as Wynonna crosses into the hall.

“Actually, Waves—I know exactly where she is.”


	12. keep a place for me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lol so sorry again for whats about to happen. ahem
> 
> enjoy this monster of a chapter, whoops.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I highly recommend listening to the song Self Control by Frank Ocean, especially when it gets to a certain...um part. I'm sure y'all will figure it out

“Hey, Haughtshit,” is all Nicole hears before she takes another swig of the bottle that crinkles in the paper bag in her hand. She blindly feels with her fingers behind her head for the flat, top part of the gravestone that her back is leaning against, and sets the bottle down. She shivers at the sound of the grit of the stone roughly scratching the bottom of the paper bag as she awkwardly bends her arm and slides it into place, making sure it’s stable and unlikely to fall before placing her hands on her knees, which are tucked against her chest.

She relishes the coolness of the stone against her back which she feels through her uniform top.

It’s nice.

Grounding.

She twists her neck towards the voice and sees the silhouette of Wynonna’s leather jacket before the orange of the setting sun. She remembers how much Jack loved watching the sun set. She remembers the time she had successfully snuck him out of the hospital after he had begged her for weeks to drive him out to the Vermillion Lakes to watch the sun go down. _Just once, pleaaaase,_ he had said. Wynonna had helped create a distraction of course, one that allowed Nicole and Jack to slip out of his pediatric unit undetected. She laughs at the image in her mind’s eye of a seventeen-year-old Wynonna swiping a hospital wheelchair from an equipment closet, and then one of herself, kidnapping her own brother at his request, just so he could go see something as simple as the sun going down over the Canadian Rockies.

As she smiles at the memory, a fresh batch of tears trickle down her face. She leans against the stone, closes her eyes, and pretends its actually Jack resting against her back, holding tightly around her neck as she carries him, carefully walking them both down to the water’s edge at the end of the short trail that the wheelchair was too wide for.

“Hey Wy,” she shouts. “Where’s uh—,” she snaps her fingers repeatedly while closing one eye, in an attempt to aide herself in remembering, “—you know, uh—,” she continues to snap her fingers and laugh loosely, “—my fiancée.” Nicole finds this to be just about the funniest thing ever because now she is full on hysterical, her whole body bouncing against her brother’s grave in convulsive chuckles.

Wynonna slowly walks forward. She sits next to Nicole, grabs the bottle and checks the height of the liquid.

“Daaaamn, girl. Hard at work I see?” She shakes the half empty bottle, allowing them both to listen to the swish of the liquid against the inside glass walls, the kind of splashing noises that are only possible if enough room has been made.

She takes a drink.

“If you’re here to tellll me that I shoun’t get ahead of mysulf and that thers still a chance that all this,” she gestures to the sky and to the grave and to herself, “is real? Jus save it. In fact. Get on my levl.” She points to the booze. “This affectts you jus as much as it does me.”

“You want to drag me down with you? I’m touched.”

“Until the very end.” The smile Nicole makes forces her eyes to squint closed, sending more tears down her cheek. “Right, nonna?”

“Dude, did you just quote Harry Potter?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, now I know this isn’t your first bottle.” Wynonna furrows her brow, unsure if she should be more concerned or impressed.

The former wins out.

“Hey Nicole?”

“Yesss.”

“I know this is hard, but its not all bad, right?”

“Howwe”

“According to Waverly, my dad was less of an abusive prick in her world.” Wynonna gazes off into the distance. She focuses her sight on the white fence of the cemetery that lies just beyond the slope they are sitting on.

This comment significantly sobers up Nicole, if only for a moment. “Wow. That’s a lot.”

“Yeah. Waves thinks its because there were more of us for him to take out his assholey-ness on. Distribute the bastardry more evenly, so none of us experienced—well, you know. Apparently, Willa was a bit of a dick too. Kind of emotionally abused Waverly, from the sound of it.” Wynonna squints her eyes,  so wishing she could remember. Waverly had implied that Wynonna hadn’t any idea about it when they were kids. So at least the guilt she feels now doesn’t really need a memory attached to it.

_It’s the little things._

Even in Nicole’s drunken stupor, she still feels her chest flutter at this revelation. That’s just totally, completely wrong, she thinks. She suddenly wishes Willa was alive so she could beat her up.

“She also thinks that maybe, well, because Willa was a lot like Daddy, both dickwads and all, he must of felt less alone. Like he needed to take out his anger at Mama leaving on someone. I know it’s fucked up to think about, Nicole. It’s all so fucking fucked. But there has to be some good in that, right? There has to be.” Wynonna’s thoughts trail off, leaving silence in their wake.

“Is Waverly a psychollologist?” Nicole chirps out. _She’s so pretty. Pretty therapist lady._

“I don’t think so, man.” Wynonna laughs.

“Is he alive?” Nicole asks.

Wynonna curtly replies, “No. But apparently, she told me that _this time_ when I killed him, it was an accident.”

Nicole looks into Wynonna’s eyes and knows better, even in a schwasty state like this, than to unpack that one. _When you’re sober, Haught. Definitely, when you’re sober._

_Hiccup._

“So, are you done feeling sorry for yourself?” Wynonna instantly regrets how it slips out, because it definitely sounds more like an accusation, as opposed to the lighthearted joke she had intended.

“You know what Wynonna, I’m siiiick of your, judgenmints!” Nicole stands, flailing her limbs in pretend annoyance. She quickly tires herself out and plops back down. She digs her fingers into the grass, which is starting to dampen now that the sun is no longer high enough in the sky for it to burn away the condensing moisture. She applies more pressure, digging harder, bringing up a small handful of dirt. She holds it up, eyes it curiously, shakes it in her hand for a few seconds, and then proffers it out to Wynonna.

“For me?”

Nicole nods proudly, eyes closed.

“Wow, Nicole. You shouldn’t have.” Wynonna quips as Nicole dumps the handful into her friend’s palm.

Nicole brings her dirty hand back to eyelevel. She examines the dark lines of dirt still stuck under her nails. “You think it’s real, Wynoa?”

“Do I think what’s real?”

“The dirt.”

“Um. I don’t know, Nicole.” She rubs it between her index finger and thumb. “Feels real.” She holds it to her nose. “Smells real.” She quirks her eyebrow in a ‘what could it hurt’ expression before putting the particles of dirt between her fingers to her mouth and—

“Noo! Don do it,” Nicole says. “Germs, Nonna. The faaake germs will get chuw.”

“Fair enough.” She drops the dirt onto the ground. “Nicole, listen, you need to hear this—”

Before she can continue Nicole interrupts her. “You know what, no. I’m sick of hearing everyone else talk bout all the things. Imm sick of the things. Thing this and thing that. No moar things! I want it to stahp. I want it all to stop. Its all too crazy. None of thiss makes sense. How can Jack be buried here, but not be buried here? How can this be his body in thee dirt but not be a body? He’s my brother. I know it. I feel it. I remember him. But everyones saying hes not real. How can he not be real, Wynonna? He’s real. He has to be real.”

“Listen, just because the things you and I have seen in the last, oh, twenty years, may have been in our heads… who’s to say they’re not real?” _You fucking nerd, Wynonna._

“Dumbledeedore.”

“Yes. Dumbledeedore, indeed.” Wynonna lets her dimples show.

Nicole’s sobs start up again.

“Shhhhhh, Nicole. It’s okay.” Wynonna lets her own tears fall. Her heart is racing now. Seeing Nicole like this is the last thing she wanted. She turns to face her friend, rubbing her hands up and down the the sides of her arms that only have the stiff uniform top adorned on them. “Listen, none of this is going to make sense. Especially when you’re not sober, okay? But you need to shut up and listen to me.”

Nicole tightly holds her lips and pretends to throw away the invisible key.

“Yeah it’s starting to look a bit like the things we thought were true in our life are, well, not. Is it entirely fucked up? Yes. Is it horribly unfair? Yes. But I promise you, Nicole,” Wynonna takes the redhead’s hand in both of hers. “Do you feel this?” She lightly shakes the hand she holds back and forth for emphasis. “You feel that? That’s real. It doesn’t matter how it came to be. It doesn’t matter. You are my goddamn best friend, and if you think for one second that that’s going to change just because, oh, the fabric of the universe is a teensy bit different than we previously thought? Well, you don’t know me at all.”

“That’s so sappy.” Nicole mumbles through her sob-laughs.

Even with the tears that won’t stop tracking down the redhead’s face, Wynonna is pleased to see the aggressive nod of her head in agreement. “Nicole, do you understand what I’m saying? You and I? This thing? This shit’s forever. Even with all this fuckyness—I need to _you_ to know, that this,” she gestures to the air between the blubbery police officer and herself, “is one thing you can count on that will _always_ be real. Yeah?”

“Okay.”

“Now, give me the yummy alcohol drink.”

Nicole dutifully complies.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It takes all of twenty minutes of Waverly nervously pacing around the apartment while she decides how to accept the fact that she’s home and the world is all _funky,_ before she finally notices the pile of photographs sitting on the kitchen table. In an instant she recognizes the subjects.

_No friggin’ wayyyyyyyy._

She lets the surprise wash over her. Denial even. Then she comes to agree with her eyes.

_It’s them._

_Red and Sam and Jack of Knives and you stupid radioactive dude with the ugly veiny Bulshar arm._ She shivers at the memory of those gross arm veins. She _hates_ veiny arm veins.

They’re so…veiny.

Waverly counts thirteen Revenants in total. She recognizes that all the pictures have been taken in the hospital where Nicole works. Where Bobo is.

“What the friggity frack is going on!” She says, essentially to Calamity Jane, since the apartment is otherwise empty.

Waverly’s mind races a mile a minute. How are they alive? How does the veiny one have the arm reattached? How are they alive again? They broke the curse, didn’t they? BUT HOW ARE THEY ALIVE?!

_So not fair!_

Waverly considers it for a moment and surmises that it couldn’t possibly be a coincidence that all this funky supernatural activity seems to be occurring in the same place. There has to be a reason.

She suddenly wishes she has a phone so she can inform her roommates of that fact that she has most definitely decided to go back to the hospital and get more information out of Bobo Del Rey.

Waverly isn’t sure if it’s her recent attainment of the new belief that she’s finally in the company of her real family that causes her to make her way to Bobo’s unit unaccompanied, or if it’s because she looked upon the faces of demons that are supposed to be dead and it engendered within her an urgency to handle the situation as soon as possible.

But haught-damn, regardless of the reason, the expediency with which Waverly Earp leaves the apartment to prove that she is indeed the Earpiest Earp of them all—well, let’s just say it was fast.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

She takes the bus.

Turns out its faster than walking.

Waverly has no issues getting past the first set of security doors that lead to the same stairwell where she can still feel the ghost of Nicole Haught’s fingers wrapping around her own from almost four weeks ago. The memory burns into her skin. In that moment she finds herself pausing before hiking up the stairs. She finds herself wondering if Nicole is okay. She shakes her head and holds her hand to her chest, hoping she can, just maybe, rid herself of the ache above her ribs she feels when she thinks of the look on Nicole’s face when her world came crashing down.

She never wanted that for Nicole. She thought the idea of coming home would be different. She thought she would be happy. But instead, she’s just sad for what Nicole has lost.

She hopes Wynonna found her. All of a sudden, the same feeling of jealousy that she has been feeling for the past month for her sister’s mysterious connection with her girlfriend transforms sleekly into gratitude. _Thank God,_ she thinks, that there is someone in this world, a new reality where Nicole has all this—trauma—that Waverly has no history with—that knows the redhead so deeply. Enough to help.

Before shifting her right leg up to rest on that lower step, she comes to understand what she feels is nothing other than respect. Respect for what is essentially a sacred bond held together by a shared past that Waverly isn’t even a part of.

She respects it. Even if it is manufactured.

Waverly’s pause in moving forward only lasts a few seconds, at most. But somehow, a lifetime of questions pop into her head during that short time. How is it that this reality came to be? How old is it? If it was created shortly after she was taken, the spell, or _whatever the hell it is_ could only be a few weeks old, right? Does that mean these memories that Nicole and Wynonna and Jeremy and Gus have are only as fresh as a month-old newborn? Like, damn. Babies aren’t even sentient at that age. How can such complicated histories, such seemingly painful ones that shape an entirely different personality into being, only be the product of the time it takes to leisurely read War and Peace. (Well, if you’re Waverly Earp obviously. Normal people don’t finish that stupid book.)

A door closing on a landing a few floors above her snaps her out of her thoughts. She listens to the echo of footsteps. They stomp upwards, the sound of the rubber on the soles of sneakers hitting against the tile steps, a sound that’s louder than it should be. Waverly waits for the sounds to disappear before she ascends. She gets to the fourth floor, opens the door to the hallway just outside the elevators before realizing she has no idea how she plans on sneaking into the unit itself. She recalls from her earlier trip with Nicole that it requires an electronic keycard, the kind the cop carries around with her.

She thinks she can pretend to be visiting a patient, right? Maybe that will get her into the unit? Is Bobo allowed visitors? She doesn’t want to risk being turned away because then it will just call attention to her presence when she does make it on the unit. Just when she’s decided she’s going to go to the restroom and try and discreetly pickpocket someone’s badge from them in the clear light of day ( _this is a bad plan, Waverly_ ), she sees the most _beautiful_ face of one, Jeremy Chetri, M.D. walking towards her.

He’s approaching from the other end of the hall with the sort of expression that says ‘I’m glad to see you but also what the hell are you doing here, you _crazy!’_ He’s carrying a to-go cup of what she guesses could only be a soy, double latte, because _let’s be real,_ this kid is vegan in any iteration of himself, much like herself.

“Waverly! I was just going to call you—well, I was going to call Wynonna. You really need a phone.”

“Huh ha, seriously, right?” She nervously laughs while putting one hand on her hip.

He quirks his eyebrow at her awkward stance and looks to the closed set of double-doors just to the left of her, then back to Waverly, who has this cheesy-ass smile on her face that says she is _guilty af_ for something Jeremy isn’t so sure he wants to know about.

But he can guess.

“You need in?”

“Yes! Oh my god, thank you Jer. That would be great.” Her own eyebrow curls in curiosity. “Wait I thought you didn’t have a keycard? When you examined me that first day and Nicole got us into that unit—”

“Oh, that? Nah, I had just left my badge in the locker-room. It’d be pretty silly for a bunch of doctors to not have access to the patients, right?” He laughs nervously now too.

“Um. Right. Duh.” She smacks the heel of her hand to her forehead jokingly. “So…uh.” She gestures to the door.

“Oh…yeah, of course.” He casually swipes his badge in front of the electronic pad and they both hear the click of the lock disengaging. Waverly grabs the handle, twists, and she pulls the door open. Before she can walk the whole way through she hears him say over her shoulder, “hey, make sure to call me later? There was something I wanted to talk about, something from your most recent bloodwork.”

She barely registers this, too preoccupied with the patient she’s about to see. “Oh, sure, yeah, sounds good. Talk later!” And she rushes into the unit.

 _She’s an odd one,_ he thinks. He waits for the door to shut completely before he pulls out his phone and dials a number he was instructed to memorize and then burn.

He listens to the dial-tone for a moment before hearing a resounding low voice give a curt, “Yeah?”

“Hey, it’s Chetri.”

“I told you, don’t use names.”

“Uh, sorry. But I thought you should know. You told me you wanted to know. When it happens. Well—I think it’s happening.”

The foreboding he feels run through him makes him tremble. There is no response on the other end of the line, so he continues in making clear something he knows he must spell out, resolutely.

“She knows.”

He hangs up.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Back already?

She moves in slowly. Then quickly. She realizes that speed is going to be essential. She doesn’t have a lot of time. She also doesn’t want an RN to walk in on what she’s about to do.

“Cut the crap Bobo, how are the Revenants alive?”

“The Revenants? I don’t know what you mean, Angel.”

“Shove it you creep. I gave you what you wanted, don’t you remember? After you murdered my father. I still helped you. I set you free.”

“It’s not something I’m likely to forget, Waverly.” He blinks.

“Well then, help me. You don’t have much of a choice.”

“I don’t?”

“No. You’re just a man now. If you were still a Revenant, you really think you’d still be letting them keep you trapped in here? I’m not an idiot. I can see the metal clasps on these straps.” She walks to his side and points to the chrome pieces of metal on the leather restraints holding him to the frame of the bed. “If you still had your—your hocus pocus telekinesis or whatever, I know for a fact that you would have gotten out of these in a matter of seconds. So yeah. You’re just a man. Nothing but a man.” She spits this out, as if it’s the lowest thing a person can be. _Maybe it is_ , she thinks.

He closes his eyes, as if in a blissful state of nirvana. “How is it that I always underestimate your—powers of observation, Waverly Earp?”

She shakes her head. How long will this aimless banter continue, she wonders? “I don’t know, Bobo, it’s probably all that evilness blinding you, like, like geez I don’t know, cataracts!”

“Cataracts?”

“Yes.”

“Hmmm.” He smiles. This visual amuses him.

Waverly makes a choice. Then she commits.

As she leans forward and begins to undo the straps on the only barrier protecting the world from Bobo Del Rey, she breathes out. It’s a guilty breath that leaves her lungs. The kind that is hot and, in her mind, hopefully stinging the skin of this man that is only a few inches from her face. She’s doing this, she’s helping him. But he doesn’t have to enjoy it if she can help it.

Before she loosens the final strap, she looks back to his head. “How do I know you’re not going to run away and betray me the first chance you get?” She truly is going on blind faith that he won’t. _This plan really sucks shitballs, man._

“Oh, my dear. You don’t. But I do have one thing now, as a man, that I didn’t when I was still under Bulshar’s control.” Waverly shivers at the name.

“What’s that?” She asks, but she knows.

“Free will.”

She continues to loosen the last restraint. He rises so slowly that she doesn’t really know what to do with herself. Bobo looks like he’s in pain as leans forward, sitting on the edge of his bed, as if he hadn’t been allowed to move on his own for weeks.

“I’m really not a medical professional, but aren’t they supposed to, like, move your extremities around and stuff to make sure your joints don’t fuse when you’re stuck in the same position? I thought modern medicine meant treating patients with dignity and, I don’t know, attending to safety needs?” Waverly is starting to wonder if this hospital even _has_ an Ethics Committee.

In a low rasp, he says, “are you really choosing now to take up a new social justice cause?”

“Apparently,” she says. Who the hell is in charge around here anyway? She realizes she hasn’t seen a nurse or, really, anyone at all come and check on Bobo both times she’s been here. Not that she’s complaining. That would be bad. Very bad. But still. He is a patient, here, isn’t he?

As he stands and puts on the change of clothes Waverly had picked up from a nearby thrift store with some of the petty cash Wynonna had given her, he speaks. “You know, Waverly, I had a dream last night about you.”

“Agh, I don’t want to hear this.” _Seriously, is he seriously going to choose now to tell me about his creepy-ass dreams?_

“Oh, hush, not like that, Angel. But I did. I have the same one, almost every night.”

She turns around when he takes off his hospital PJs. While facing the wall, back to a changing psych ward patient, she listens to his dream.

“I dream that you, my Angel, you bring me to a gate. You’re always walking, just ahead of me, under vines hanging from trees and winding their way around our feet, pulling us forward. You look back at me, ever so often. There are always two gates. And you make me choose. One is made of Ivory. The other is made of horn. And every time I have this dream, I never choose the same one. I never settle on which to walk through.”

“Which gate did you pass through last night?”

“The one of Ivory,” he says. “I’m dressed now.”

“What like an elephant?”

“I do not know, Waverly Earp.”

“Great. Let’s go, Bobo Del Weirdo.”

As they walk down the seemingly empty unit, back towards freedom, a question occurs to Waverly.

“You didn’t say what happens.” She looks back to him, while steadily leading him forward.

“When, Angel?”

“What happens when you pass through the threshold?” Waverly turns the handle of the unit doors.

“I thought that was obvious.”

She makes an expectant expression with her eyebrows, saying, ‘no, you evil dummy, it’s not obvious at all.’

He sees her confusion. “I wake up.”

Waverly holds the door open and he smiles that creepy smile as he walks through it. She leads him out of the hospital and into the wide open.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“So, what are your intentions with my sister?”

“You know what? Wynonna. Thanks so much for the pancakes. I feel soooo much better…. But no. We are not talking about this.” Nicole pushes her cleaned plate out of the space on the bar in from of her and sips the coffee that has slowly helped ease her back in to soberness.

“Oh, haha we soooooo are.” Wynonna takes her fourth beer from the bar and chugs a couple mouthfuls before setting it back down. “Don’t be so coy, Nicole. You think I haven’t heard those late-night rendezvous? Are you screwing her?”

“Jesus, no! She’s practically engaged.”

“Yeah, dude. To _you_.” Wynonna smiles evilly.

“I mean, yeah, that’s kind of true, but I don’t remember anything about that. Neither do you. All I remember are the other shitty relationships I’ve had that never even happened.” She leans back in the barstool she sits in, the old wood creaking as she shifts. She crosses her leg and rests her hand on her knee, making visible the ring she so wishes she could get off.

It’s not that Nicole hasn’t felt _something_ between herself and Waverly. She has. It’s no secret that Waverly probably feels the same. The ring is proof of that right? Unless of course her feelings have changed since, well since everybody’s world was altered. But Nicole also knows she can’t do anything about it. She won’t. It’s all too weird.

“Wy, I will say this. I’ve been such an asshat to her. An absolute dick.”

“Yeah no kidding. You still on that bullshit?”

“I hope not.”

“Because she deserves better than that, Nicole. Waverly is like, she’s the fucking light, you know?”

Nicole smiles at this. She thought she would be jealous or irritated or sickened to hear Wynonna talk about Waverly in such a positive way, but if anything, it makes her feel freer to acknowledge that she also sees the way Waverly exudes her energy. She thinks about how the whole world looks blue and Waverly is legitimately the only thing that cracks through that unnatural hue. With every fucking color of the rainbow.

_That’s so gay, Nicole._

But it’s true, she thinks. It’s so true.

“I know, Wynonna. Trust me. I know.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Waves, you here?” Wynonna yells through the threshold of the open door, as she pushes it forward. She walks in and throws her keys in their obligatory place on the kitchen table.

The apartment is silent. It’s also pitch-black. When she walks in, Nicole notices the neatly stacked blankets on the couch. She assumes Waverly went out.

Wynonna looks to the table and sees that the photographs she had _definitely_ forgotten to put away earlier are neatly stacked and folded into the manila file folder. _Crap._ _Damnit, Waverly._

Nicole goes to turn a light on in the living room when all of the sudden the smaller Earp stumbles out of Nicole’s bedroom. The red light straining through the open living room shades stream in and land on Waverly’s super-guilty looking face.

“What you doing there, slick?” Nicole creases her eyebrows in admonition at herself.

_Slick? Smooth Nicole. Really smooth._

She estimates that she’s still a little drunk.

“Uh, nothing. You guys want to go out for a drink?”

“Not really, Sorry Waves. I think I just drank, like, all of Shorty’s cheap beer. I’m going to bed. Let’s, um, let’s make a big breakfast in the morning or something, yeah?”

“Sure. Night Wy.” Nicole and Waverly practically say this in unison. They look to each other and smile.

Nicole can’t help but notice, for the first time that day, how well the soft pink sweater fits Waverly. She recognizes it as Wynonna’s but can also see that it looks better on its current owner. Jesus, how it hugs her torso and matches the hazel and green and even a little blue in her big eyes that she can see, even from this distance in the room and the fibers of the wool itching at Nicole’s throat make her want to—

“Nicole.”

“Yes, Wynonna?” She just barely chokes out.

“Try to keep it down, yeah?” Wynonna winks, to the both of them, Nicole thinks. She quickly glances to Waverly and can swear she sees a shade of blush darker even than the red lights streaming in from outside.

“Kay. Night.” Nicole retorts back, shortly.

Wynonna eyes them curiously for a moment then walks towards her bedroom, then without turning around, yells out, “Night, weirdos.” She closes her door and can almost instantly be heard snoring like the freight train she is.

Nicole realizes she’s still standing in the dark alone with Waverly. She feels kind of sweaty.

She turns on the floor-light that sits next to Wynonna’s leather chair. Or what has definitely become Wynonna’s chair ever since they got it from that furniture liquidators a few months before Waverly got here. She walks into the kitchen and grabs a bottle of wine from the charred-over cabinet and starts uncorking it.

“Want a drink? It’s um…” she looks at the bottle, “…that Pinot Noir. I was gonna put on some Netflix or something?”

“Nicole Haught, are you asking me to Netflix and Chill with you?” Waverly smiles that same smile where her eyes crinkle and her white teeth show themselves the glory of the universe to Nicole and all she can say is…

“Yeah, sure, I mean if you’re bored, or whatever.” Nicole smiles and just barely holds herself back from winking. She knows she’s laying it on thick, but she feels like she has a lot to make up for. She’s not sure if she’ll ever forgive herself for treating Waverly so poorly the past few weeks, especially since, she realizes in this moment, it was completely the opposite of the way she felt all along. There’s just something about this…girl. She shines. She’s (and Nicole invisibly rolls her eyes at the thought, even though its true), she’s incandescent. Like the butt-end of the first firefly of the summer season.

“Ok, but I choose.” Waverly turns gracefully and goes to sit on the couch.

“Fine, if you must. I’m just gonna shower and change real quick first okay?”

“Wait! No.” A look of panic crosses her face.

“Um…why not, Waves. I’m gross.” Nicole points down to the grass stains on her khaki uniform pants. The cemetery certainly left its mark earlier.

“What are you talking about? You look great. You always look great.” Nicole doesn’t miss for a second the look of regret, but pushes past it anyway.

“Um. Okay. Let me at least change. Wait, not that I care, but…why were you in my room earlier?”

“Oh sorry, I accidentally chased Calamity Jane in there and was trying to get her out.” Waverly’s eyes sort of twitch nervously. If Nicole wasn’t so distracted by how Waverly slowly takes her sweater off, pulling it over her head and letting the fabric drag the ends of her brown hair through the neck’s hole, before tossing it to the floor next to the sofa, revealing that same camisole from earlier with the paper-thin spaghetti straps, well, maybe Nicole would have noticed that Waverly was lying through her teeth. But she doesn’t.  

Without much warning, Nicole walks into her bedroom and grabs a clean t-shirt from her dresser and some pajama pants as well. She quickly changes into them, checking the mirror in her bathroom and combing her orange hair out so its straight and hanging cleanly at her shoulders. She chooses to not think about how lame she feels when she applies a thin layer of lip gloss to her lips before going back out to the living room, sitting down on the other side of the couch, giving Waverly a fair amount of space.

A full bottle and a half of Red later, the distance between Nicole’s knees and Waverly’s has nearly closed. Both are cross-legged on the couch, legs just barely touching. Their Netflix show has been paused by this point and Nicole is telling Waverly about the time Wynonna and her had taken the wrong bus in Greece and ended up in the wrong city with no map or GPS and no ability to speak the language.

“I don’t get it, how do you both go to a country to _travel_ , so insanely unprepared?” Waverly is cracking up. Nicole can see that Waverly has caught up to Nicole with the drinks. She wasn’t trying to get Waverly drunk, but here they both were, fairly buzzed talking about Nicole’s world travels that never technically happened.

“Hey, don’t you dare mock us! Traveling is hard. Sometimes things…slip your mind.”

Waverly smiles at this. Nicole isn’t sure how it became so damn easy to make Waverly smile. But she’s addicted to the feeling. Even if it happens through using anecdotal stories about things that never happened to her, in that moment, she doesn’t care. She’d do anything to keep that smile stretched across Waverly Earp’s face.

“Man, Nicole. I’d give just about anything to leave this country. Even if just for a short time.”

“So, you’re telling me that the girl that traverses universal portals, the one that travels to the GARDEN OF EDEN,” Nicole stretches out her words with a massive smirk, forcing a blush to Waverly’s cheeks, “has never even crossed into Mon-freaking-tana?” Suddenly Nicole feels a flutter in her chest. This girl. All she wants to do is, quite literally, see the world, and when she finally leaves Purgatory, its against her will? Nicole feels a deep anger burn in place of the flutter she felt a moment before.

“Yup.”

“Well that’s bullshit, isn’t it!” Nicole laughs. She holds her wine glass in her hands, running her thumb over the rim. Around and around and around.

She swears she sees Waverly watching her fingers on the glass. She swears she can even hear her breath catch when Nicole puts the wine glass on the table and smoothly scoots just a tiny-bit closer to the other girl.

“Want to watch the next one?” Nicole asks.

“Sure.” Waverly is definitely staring. Her eyes seem hazy. Intent, even. Nicole holds back a smile at this revelation.

She leans forward, deeply aware of how her t-shirt pulls up when she reaches for the remote on the coffee table. She feels the goosebumps that rise on her bare lower back as she imagines Waverly looking on at the shirtless skin. She sits back and notices Waverly reorient her gaze to the TV.

Nicole can feel the heat from Waverly’s thigh just next to her own. The side of their legs are completely flush against each other. She feels herself get warm all over. Every part of her. Just from that small bit of contact. She wonders if Waverly can feel it too. She thinks she can, since the other girl’s face is flushed as she looks anywhere but at Nicole. It almost annoys the redhead. _Why won’t she look at me?_

Nicole does just about everything to get her attention. She feels like a damn fool, that’s for sure. But maybe she misread the situation? Maybe Waverly doesn’t want this anymore.

“Waves. Can you look at me for a second?” Her heart starts racing. Like racing racing.

“Hmm?” Waverly turns to her, grabs the remote out from Nicole’s lap and pauses the TV. “What’s up?” She says casually.

“Hey.” Nicole says quietly, intent on capturing the attention of this girl completely.

“Hi.” Waverly returns just as quietly. She says it like it’s code. At least, Nicole thinks it is. Like this is something they’ve said to each other, in exactly this way, a million times.

“I um…” Nicole can’t stop looking at Waverly’s lips. There just right there. So close. She hopes she notices. She wants this to be obvious. She turns so she’s facing the other girl. Despite the thrashing of her heart against the walls of her chest, Nicole still manages to drape one arm over the back of the sofa, her hand landing near Waverly’s face, but not touching. She places her other hand on Waverly’s knee. “Can I try something?”

If a person has ever been able to hear another person’s pulse, she swears it’s happening right now. In this moment Nicole believes that beyond the sound of her own heartbeat throbbing in her ears, she can hear Waverly’s, pounding on.

Nicole doesn’t even need to say what it is she’d like to try before Waverly Earp closes her eyes and careens her head so that the side of her face is being held by Nicole’s soft hand on the back of the couch. “Yes. Please do,” Waverly says.

“Well, okay then.”

Nicole doesn’t take her time moving into Waverly’s space. She doesn’t hold back when she presses her lips to Waverly’s. She doesn’t restrain her hands when they work themselves up and down Waverly’s shoulders and then torso and then when they run urgently over her legs. Nicole doesn’t slow down the pace of her breathing when she feels Waverly push her chest against her own, forcing Nicole onto her back. She doesn’t quiet the small moans she lets out when she feels Waverly lightly touch her thumb to the corner of Nicole’s mouth, like a secret key that Nicole instantly knows is Waverly prompting her to part her lips. So she does. Waverly kisses her deeply and Nicole doesn’t understand how she could have ever been so cruel to this woman. She’s so soft and kind and fucking smart as hell and _she’s kissing me right now and it feels so good._

Waverly moves her knee so it’s resting between Nicole’s thighs. It slowly moves forward, up the inside of Nicole’s legs and when it lands in it’s place where Waverly intends, Nicole feels so…warm, and safe, and out of breath. And then Waverly presses it forward with a pressure that forces Nicole’s mouth to open wider.

“Waves, we should—” She can’t get the words out because now Waverly is touching her hands to the bottom hem of Nicole’s shirt and there aren’t words that could ever be said while such a thing happens.

Then it stops.

It all stops, and before Nicole can check to see if Waverly is okay or if they should take a break because things are definitely getting a little intense, she sees it.

_Oh my god._

Waverly’s eyes are rolling backwards. She can only see the whites in their sockets. Her whole body is tensing. She’s completely quiet except for the sound of the erratic convulsions her body makes against the couch’s fabric.

“Waverly! Waverly can you hear me?” Nicole’s heart is instantly on fire and in no way the kind she was hoping for tonight. She sits back and turns Waverly so she is safe in her arms, her back leaning against Nicole’s chest. Nicole rests her own back against the arm of the couch as she loosely holds on to Waverly as she seizes in her arms. She makes sure to watch her head and keep her turned slightly on her side.

Tears are streaming down Nicole’s face and she can’t stop her voice from shaking. “Waverly, please. It’s okay. It’s okay. Wynonna, get your ass out here! Waverly, wake up. Please.” It comes out as a beg.

Wynonna rushes out just in time for Waverly’s eyes to open and for her tensed body to finally relax in Nicole’s arms. Nicole moves her hand up and down Waverly’s arm in an attempt to sooth the girl while she starts looking around.

“Jesus. Are you okay? You scared me, I thought you—” Nicole’s tears run into Waverly’s hair. Wynonna crouches down next to them both.

Without even taking her eyes off of Waverly, Wynonna puts one hand in Waverly’s while the other finds its way to Nicole’s cheek, swiping the tears away. “What the hell was that, Waves?”

Waverly seems exhausted from the ordeal, but she sits up. “I—something happened. I saw something.”

“What did you see?”

“It was a memory. It just—came over me. I don’t know why.”

Nicole entwines her fingers into Waverly’s free hand. “Waverly, you need to go to the hospital. That was  a full on seizure. I’ve seen them before. There’s no mistaking it.”

“No. I think I’m fine. I’m too tired.”

“Okay…well how about Jeremy stops by and checks you out? Please. That was—that was really scary.” Nicole’s breathing finally starts to slow, but she can’t quite get her eyes to stop releasing new batches of tears.

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Waverly looks up and into Nicole’s eyes. Nicole recognizes what she sees in an instant. Regret. “I need to tell you what I saw.” Waverly shakes her head and her own tears start to fall.

“I need to tell you both what I saw. It was from the Garden.”

“What, Waves? What was it?” Wynonna is frantic. Nicole thinks she’s too frantic to notice the sadness in Waverly’s eyes. It’s the same sadness Waverly had for the past four weeks before they went to see Bobo earlier in the day. Before Bobo had said what he said…about this world.

“Waverly…” Nicole feels her heartrate pick up. But she knows. She already knows. She can see it in Waverly’s eyes. She knows.

“Nicole, I’m so sorry. But—”

Wynonna can see there’s a silent conversation taking place that she doesn’t understand.

“Can someone please tell me what’s going on?” She says, somewhat impatiently.

“Yeah Wy. I can.” Nicole’s heart drops. She turns to Wynonna, still feeling the heat of Waverly’s gaze on her face.

Nicole squeezes Waverly’s hand tightly, just for a second, before letting it go, unsure if she’ll ever be able to hold it again.

“This isn’t Waverly’s world. She hasn’t made it home." Wynonna looks between Nicole and Waverly's face, which is so utterly sad.

"We’re not hers.”


	13. i'm sure we're taller in another dimension

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waverly remembers something. Nicole and Wynonna worry about Waverly. Jeremy stops by.

_“You need to give this to Nicole. Please.” She’s panting and bent over, trying to catch her breath. They’ve been running. A lot._

_And they don’t have much time._

_She pulls out her letter hastily scratched onto a scrap of paper from her backpack. She carefully tucks it into his jacket pocket and pats it affectionately._

_“My dear Waverly.” He steps into her space and lifts one hand to her face. When he wipes the falling lone tear from its track, she closes her eyes and accepts the comfort. She knows it’s the only bit of familiarity and love and peace she’ll probably be receiving from anyone for quite some time._ Damn this plan _, she thinks. He pulls his hand back and places it on one shoulder, adding the other hand to her other shoulder. He needs her to know his intentions. He needs her to know how deep his regret runs. “In what universe would you ever need to ask twice?” He hugs her tightly. “I will give it to her. I beg of you, do not worry.”_

_She squeezes him back, relishing the prickle of his mustache scratching her forehead when he leaves one loving kiss to it._

_“I do not know what you are going to find beyond your door. But I know this.” He pulls back and looks her in the eyes, hands still settled on her shoulders. “You, little darlin’, are Waverly Earp. An Angel sent from the very stars above. Whatever new world awaits you, whatever new beasts or ghouls or trials of the heart that befall you, I have every slice of faith you will make it through. You will come home. Stick to the plan and I swear it. I swear on my daughter’s life. We will see each other again.”_

_Her tears don’t stop streaming as she watches John Henry Holliday turn, walk forward, and pass through the same door she had been pulled into before all this started. He looks back one last time to give a small wave, his face serious with the pain of what they both must do, and then he continues forward into the light, disappearing from view._

_She is jealous that he gets to go home. She envies the looks of joy he will see on her sister’s face and their friends’ faces and the warmth of the hugs he’ll receive and all the stories he will hear of how they’ve been getting on since they’ve been gone. She wishes she could go with him._

This has to work _, she thinks. Waverly hopes it doesn’t take her too long to find what she needs._ Once I find it, I can go home.

_Until then, she knows she’ll have to travel. She’ll have to go a great distance and see a new world that looks an awful lot like her own but she will have to remember that it is anything but. She is afraid of the way they’ll look at her. She’s afraid of what they’ll think and if they’ll accept her. She’s afraid of being so far away from those she so desperately wants to see._

It’s okay. I can do this. I’m strong. I can do this. _She opens her own door, another gate sitting next to the one Doc just passed through. She takes a deep breath and speaks out loud to herself, hoping it will push her forward._

“Wynonna may be the chosen one, but I’m a friggin’ Angel!”

_She walks through the threshold of her gate and falls._

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Wait, so what you’re saying, is that this other me,” Wynonna seems to be in some kind of shock, “has a kid? And I’m sorry, did you say Doc is my baby daddy?”

“Yep.”

“Doc. Like Doc, Doc?”

“Yep he went and, knocked ya up.” Waverly smiles and swings her fist with gusto.

“Well, that’s…somethin’.” Wynonna sits quietly in her chair, lost in thought.

Nicole is still sitting on her side of the couch, while Waverly sits on the other.

“I wish I knew what I came here to find. But I can’t remember.” Waverly feels as lost as ever. She thought she was home. She thought she was closer to figuring out what happened. Now she only has more questions. She rubs her neck. The memory coming back to her tired her out. All she wants to do is go to sleep.

Nicole notices when Waverly leans her head back, as if she plans on falling asleep right then and there. “Waves, I’m not sure you should pass out just yet. Jeremy will be here soon.” She glances down to her watch.

Without opening her eyes she says “I’m not sleeping. Just closing my eyes. For a minute.” She practically mumbles it.

Nicole stands and grabs one of the folded blankets from its spot next to Waverly. She shakes it out and gently places it over the sleeping girl. She makes eye contact with Wynonna, who looks just as tired. Probably still a little drunk, Nicole thinks to herself. She gestures to the kitchen. They both walk silently and sit at the kitchen table, careful to not wake Waverly.

“What do we do, Wynonna? I’m worried about her.” Nicole says this in a whisper. They both turn their heads and watch as Waverly tucks into herself more tightly under the blanket. “I’m not sure how she’s gonna take this.”

“I know, dude.” Wynonna has her head in her hands. “At least with you earlier, I knew what to say. I knew how to help. We don’t have that advantage with her. We don’t know her well enough.” Nicole nods. She can’t believe they’re back to this place. She had spent the whole afternoon drinking because she thought her world was falling apart. She hated that feeling but Wynonna had been there to pull her out of it. Now it’s Waverly who’s world is crashing down around her and Nicole feels…useless. She feels like she should have learned some sort of valuable lesson from her conversation with Wynonna but she’s coming up empty.

Nicole had Wynonna. She had someone she’s known her whole life, someone who knows her history and what makes her tick and who knows what triggers her stress. Waverly is completely alone in this world. Yes, she has Nicole and Wynonna in a sense. They’re certainly her friends. Or at least, Nicole hopes they are. But it’s not like they know her the same way they know each other. That shared connection. Knowing how the past affects the present. She’s practically a stranger. And it makes Nicole sick to her stomach.

Even if Nicole knew what to say, she’s not sure she should be the one to do it. Jesus, they had kissed. They had nearly done more than that. What had she been thinking? She’s known this whole time that they’re in a deeply precarious and complicated situation. She can’t believe she let herself get caught up like that.

More than anything, she knows Waverly is going to regret it. Knowing that her Nicole is out there still? Waverly is going to stop at nothing to get back to her. She’s going to stop at nothing to leave. The redhead stares across the room, watches as Waverly’s chest expands and falls.

She just hopes to God when the girl wakes, that she’s still able to look her in the eyes.

Nicole realizes how she’s come to depend on Waverly. Between all the late-night visits when she’s eased out of her nightmares, to the recent closeness, she would miss losing the friendship she’s building with her.

Well…was.

She decides she can’t go back to nothing. She won’t go back to being resentful and awkward and downright rude to the younger Earp. Even if Waverly expresses disinterest in them remaining friends. Because that’s Nicole’s biggest fear right now. It’s not that they won’t be together or that Waverly’s support during difficult nights stops or that they never again become as close as they did an hour ago. No. She can deal with all that.

If she has to.

What Nicole truly fears is that Waverly won’t even want to be friends. She worries, as she looks at the girl on the couch, that when she wakes up, she’ll do anything just to avoid her. Like a bad decision.

She decides they’ll have to talk about it. Not now of course. They have more important things to take care of.

 _Where are you, Jeremy?_ She holds her wrist up again and sees that its only been a few minutes since she checked the time. “He needs to get here soon. That seizure was no joke.” Even if Nicole wanted to, she thinks she’d be too tired to hide the worry in her voice.

“Hey, are you okay?” Wynonna reaches out and rests her hand on Nicole’s arm. “I know that couldn’t have been easy to see,” she pauses, but then continues, “given everything with Jack.”

Nicole considers just giving an obligatory ‘I’m fine, everything’s fine, the world is fine’ response that she normally does when Wynonna opens up this conversation, but she recognizes what she feels, at the very least, possibly, and she thinks it might be personal growth. Or the beginnings of it.

“Not really.” She smiles weakly. “Wy, I couldn’t do a thing. She started shaking out of nowhere and I…I froze.”

Wynonna’s face communicates a ‘please, like that’s possible’ expression. “That’s bull and you know it. You really think it would have been better if that had happened and she had been alone? What if she cracked her skull open on the coffee table? Or what if she came out of it on her own, with this shitty realization that she wasn’t where she thought she was? We may be piss-poor replacements for her people but at least we’re here, right? I have to believe that matters.”

Nicole musters a nod. “I mean, yeah, my training kicked in, I guess. And what little I remember from Jack when he would have his episodes. But, I don’t know, for it to happen when it did—”

“What do you mean? What was she doing right beforehand? Do you think something triggered it?”

If it’s possible for a redhead’s face to become as crimson as the hair on their head, it happens in this moment. “I—oh nothing, I don’t—the um…the Netflix.” She points to the TV and keeps her eyes on Wynonna with the blankest expression she can muster, and does not attempt to complete the thought. As if she has sufficiently explained herself.

Wynonna eyes her knowingly and glances between the drained wine glasses and her roommate’s telling face. “I see.”

Nicole realizes she is still lazily holding her hand out in the direction of the “Are you still watching?” Netflix screen in the living room. She drops it quickly. She knows she is usually smoother than this. She knows she doesn’t often get tripped up or embarrassed or exude anything other than practiced confidence when it comes to women. But Waverly? Waverly has completely derailed that entire concept. What comes to her in this moment is the recognition that she needs to get a handle on it.

Quickly.

Because nothing can ever happen again.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Once Jeremy arrives, Wynonna and Nicole throw the whole doctor-patient confidentiality thing to the wind and hover annoyingly while Waverly is examined. She doesn’t fight it. She can see they’re both just worried and sending them into the other room would probably cause more strife than necessary.

It’s just.

The way Nicole is looking at her. The way she’s standing next to a sitting Wynonna in the chair, with her arms crossed and an impatient expression on her face. It’s…jarring. And far too familiar for Waverly to deal with right now.

“So, I would really rather see some results from an EEG and a head CT, in case you’re experiencing some sort of brain-bleed or maybe even the onset of an infection or a mass. Barring those tests, there’s not a whole lot I can discern, Waverly.” Out of the corner of her eye, Waverly, who is sitting on the couch, witnesses the anxiety levels of the two women to her left increase exponentially at the words “brain” and “bleed” and “mass” being mashed together in reference to her. “And you definitely haven’t hit your head in the last few days? No history of epilepsy? You’ve never had a tonic-clonic before? Because, without having seen it, that’s definitely what it sounds like from Nicole’s description.” Jeremy tucks away his pen light in his chest pocket and puts his blood pressure cuff into his bag.

“No. None of those.”

“Okay. Well, there’s not much scientific evidence supporting the idea that it had anything to do with your memory resurfacing. Actually, its funny that you’re curious about that. I remember watching The Bourne Identity when it came out and laughing my butt off when Matt Damon starts getting these intense migraines because his memories come back to him.” Jeremy is shaking with laughter. “Like, that’s not how things work!” He’s leaning over himself while he sits on the coffee table, convulsing. No one else seems to find this as funny as him. Waverly smiles. Not at the idea of Matt Damon, but instead at her friend.

 _Oh, Jeremy_.

He looks up and sees Nicole’s face and instantly decides that if he doesn’t pull it together in a few seconds or less, he’s going to have a brain-bleed himself to worry about. He coughs nervously and recovers.

“And you’re sure I can’t convince you to come into the hospital and get checked out?”

“Absolutely not. It’ll raise too many questions.”

Waverly sees something occur to Wynonna because her face is scrunching together as if she’s trying to remember all the parts of the quadratic equation. Which she definitely never learned. She shifts in her chair, looks to Nicole, then back to Jeremy and speaks.

“Hey, Jer. Just curious. Remember when we brought her in the first time. I could have sworn that this one…” she gestures to the redhead, who makes a ‘why are you throwing me under the bus face,’ “had some sort of a seizure herself. It wasn’t anywhere near as _melodramatic_ as Waverly’s. Good job, sis.” She winks at Waverly who rolls her eyes in response. “This may sound a little, cuckoo-bananas, but I’m wondering if they could be connected to this whole alternate reality business? With Nicole’s vivid dreams and Waverly’s memories. It just seems like an uncommon sort of medical symptom to happen around the same time to two, otherwise healthy young people. Like, that’s a damn coincidence, right?” She shrugs in the sort of way that says, ‘I really have no idea what I’m talking about but I’m just gonna think out-loud regardless.’

“Yes. It is uncommon. From a medical standpoint. From a—” he twists his fingers in the air whimsically as if such a gesture specifically denotes the existence of supernatural, inter-reality events having an impact on one’s health, “—I have no freaking idea, Wynonna. Your guess is as good as mine.”

Suffice to say. This does not comfort the inhabitants of Apartment 308.

“Oh, before I forget. When I was going over your most recent bloodwork, Waverly…” Her heart starts racing. She hates doctor-things. They’re just so…doctor-y. “…your WBC count was a little high.” He sees the horror on everyone’s faces. “Oh sorry. Your white blood cells. Could mean you’re fighting off a cold. But we’ll want to watch it. If you have any signs of an infection, a fever, chills, a—”

“Seizure?” Nicole blurts out.

“Yeah. The thing is, I would be more worried about an infection as the cause if you had a high fever during it. It’s usually the fever that causes it, not the pathogen itself. Just, keep an eye out.”

“Oh, we will, don’t you worry Dr. Chetri.” Wynonna winks again, this time with an evil smile on her face pointed directly at Waverly. “We’ll watch her like a hawk.”

_Fantastic._

“Okay, well let me know if you develop any other symptoms.” He checks the time on his phone. “I’ve got to get back, my night-shift is about to start. The whole place is a nightmare right now. Apparently a patient is a missing.” Waverly casually looks out the window, careful to not let anyone in on the fact that she is most definitely the reason that patient is missing.

“Wait, what? Missing? Nedley must be having a field day.”

“You could say that. I’m surprised you didn’t get called in, honestly.” He stands and lifts his bag’s strap over his shoulder. “I’ll check in later.”

When the door closes behind him, the three roommates are left in silence. Wynonna stands and points to Waverly. “Bed. Now.”

“Hey, you can’t—”

“I just did. I mean it. You need to rest, shakey-mcgee.” Wynonna is not giving the younger girl any leeway.

“I am tired, I guess.” Waverly rubs the muscles of her neck. She knows she’s going to be sore tomorrow. She wonders if it will be as uncomfortable as things are about to be with Nicole. She can’t think about that now. Her head is still swimming from what she saw.

For example. Doc.

Doc is home.

The relief she feels knowing that he’s safe. That he’s back. Not that she remembered he was even in the Garden to begin with but that’s not the point. Waverly hasn’t known anything for certain since she fell through that damn portal. But to remember that she had seen Doc, even for a brief period, and that he was _himself_ , comforts her. The last time she had laid eyes on him, he had been at her sister’s neck. In that moment she feared his vampiric nature had taken over and that Wynonna wouldn’t survive Bulshar’s creepy snake-bite. But, once again. Doc surprised her. He sucked the venom out like he had practice or something, ( _is that a thing in the Old West? Are there lots of venomous snakes biting cowboys or something?—not important, Waverly)._

She desperately tries to remember what their plan had been. She isn’t sure, but it probably, most likely, _wasn’t_ to get here and straight-up forget it. She shakes her head in shame. _That’s just embarrassing._ She also remembers the running. She remembers it so vividly, like she can still feel her heart race out of her chest while standing next to Doc. Who had they been running from? Was it some kind of monster-doodad that lurked in the Garden, or a new threat? One connected to all of this?

_What in the hell am I supposed to find? What could possibly be in this world that isn’t in mine?_

Waverly leans her head back and doesn’t flinch when the lights around her go out. She keeps her eyes closed when she hears the clinking of wine glasses being placed in the sink and when she hears the sound of what she guesses is a full glass of ice water being set on the table near her head. She doesn’t move a muscle when a blanket is laid across her body or when she feels the presence of someone kneeling by her head or when that someone lets out a heavy sigh that she swears she can feel wash over her.

She only opens her shut eyes when she knows she is alone. When she hears a door softly close on the other side of the room.

And that’s how she guesses she’ll feel from now on. She braces herself for feeling it. Something she's grown used to in her life. Something that was introduced to her when she was a child. When Willa showed her what it was like. When Willa showed her what she deserved. Because she feels it right now. And she wonders if she'll feel it forever.

Being alone, that is.


	14. set your dreams where nobody hides

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waverly makes a deal. Bobo makes tea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wait by M83 is the song that plays on the radio, if you feel like listening to it during that scene.

Waverly Earp should have known. It is now, as she pulls into Wynonna’s usual parking spot between the dumpster and the chicken-wire fence behind their apartment building that she recognizes this fact. If her sister is anything, in any universe, she knows she’s not a liar.

When she said she would be watching the younger Earp “like a hawk,” Waverly should have known it wouldn’t be an exaggeration. This is what occurs to her when a familiar brunette in a worn leather jacket and black, scuffed combat boots walks out from behind two large leaking bags of garbage that sit in front of overflowing recycling bins.

Waverly thinks to herself that that’s sort of how she feels right now.

Like garbage.

_Lying will do that to a person,_ she thinks to herself as she puts her sister’s Landcruiser into park and lets out an exasperated sigh.

The morning after Waverly’s “little episode” as Wynonna had begun to affectionately call it, Wynonna had taken the day off from whatever the hell case it is she’s been working on to make sure her little sister stayed put on the couch and downed all the fluids that were put in front of her. And no. Waverly had not forgotten about that whole ‘Revenants-are-roaming-the-halls-of-a-hospital-where-bobo-del-rey-just-happened-to-appear-when-they-should-all-be-dead’ thing. Not that Waverly _trulyyyy_ knows what happened to the Revenants after her sister broke the curse. She kind of missed class that day, you know, on account of being kidnapped by a tree branch and all. Even if she had any idea what was up with the curse in this reality, even if she had any idea why they all seem to be localized at that damn hospital, Waverly doesn’t think she would be able to do a thing about it.

Because.

_Wynonna._

Over the last three days she hasn’t experienced anything less than what starts to feel like a familial-imposed house arrest. She’s not sure she’s ever been paid more attention to in her life. After learning she was not of this world, Waverly figured she would have to learn, yet again, to deal with being on her own. She thought she’d be forced into a life of sleeplessly perusing old books by herself in the living room and making solo trips to the library and contacting as many history professors as possible—crusty old scholars she expected would be the only people she came into contact with.

Fat chance.

Because when it wasn’t Wynonna following Waverly’s every move, including the times when she would get up to go to the bathroom, during which Waverly took pleasure in slamming the door in her sister’s face, Wynonna had seemingly recruited another to make sure the younger Earp didn’t keel over and start seizing again.

Yep you guessed it.

‘An officer of the law, with flaming red hair, tasked with protecting an inter-dimensional vagabond from none other than herself,’ as Wynonna had so eloquently put it.

Waverly couldn’t shake Nicole, something the cop seemed to be taking pleasure in. Annoying her that is. With her presence.

Yesterday Waverly announced she was making a run to the store to pick up vegan cheese, which, of course, Wynonna stated was ‘an insult to cheese everywhere,’ and there Nicole appeared, as if on cue. Insisting she drive while Waverly rested in the passenger seat. Holding her door open for her. Making sure she had her jacket. Making sure her jacket’s buttons were fastened. Pushing the cart down the aisles. Taking the 12-pack of seltzer water out of Waverly’s hands and carrying it herself. Bringing the car back around to the front of the store so that she wouldn’t have to walk.

It was driving Waverly mad. Like, she literally felt like she might go crazy. Go all Loretta Bobbett on someone’s—well. Not in this household, for obvious reasons. But she did _not_ like being treated like a child. Like she couldn’t take care of herself. Like she wasn’t _capable._

The new prison guard dynamic was also turning out to make it sort of difficult to sneak away and have clandestine meetings with a formerly dead demon that wouldn’t stop appearing in Nicole’s dreams. Waverly had decided not to tell her roommates about the Bobo situation. Just didn’t seem like a good time. She didn’t want to tell Wynonna because, well, then she would tell Jeremy and Jeremy kinda, accidentally, helped her kidnap a patient without knowing it.

So…best not. Plausible deniability and all that.

And Nicole? Waverly sure as hell wasn’t going to tell the person tasked with working as the Hospital Liaison in the investigation into the missing patient, led by some federal agent that Waverly had yet to meet.

Not to mention the fact that Nicole seemed _haunted_ by the creepazoid. When the cop would, for short periods of time, let down her smug demeanor—the same countenance Waverly swore was enjoying playing Kevin Costner to Waverly’s Whitney Houston—Waverly could see how tired she was. She could see the shadows under her eyes and the poorly hidden yawns and the slowed-down reflexes that pervaded every move she made.

It wasn’t difficult to see that Nicole had slept a few hours _tops,_ over the last few days. Ever since Waverly’s “little episode.” Ever since _things_.

But then the moment would be over and the trained police officer would re-veil her mask so that no one around her would see that she is in fact, human. Except Waverly of course. One of the perks of being watched so closely is that it becomes easy to watch right back.

For example. Waverly makes a mental note of where Nicole keeps her keys. She makes a note of where Wynonna keeps hers. Waverly finds herself making a plethora of mental notes. She finds that mental notes makes slipping away easier. Mental notes help with the planning.

And Waverly is nothing if not an _exceptional_ planner.

She snaps out of her thoughts when she sees a set of hands wrap around the edge of the open window. She hears an uncomfortably sweet voice greet her.

“Hiiii sis, whatchya doin’?” Wynonna suspiciously chirps in her ear with a smirk that says ‘I’m going to figure out what it is you’re up to.’ Waverly hates this. She hates lying to her sister.

“Hey, Wynonna, how’s your day going? Beautiful out isn’t it?” Waverly looks up to the sky and squints when the sun shines in her eyes. She thinks if she stares up long enough, maybe Wynonna will go away and leave her to her lying ways.

No such luck.

“So remember that time I said you could use my truck?

“Yep.”

“Well. Funny thing. That was before you decided to go all spazzy-pants on me, so fork ‘em over.”

“Um, excuse me, are you seizure-shaming me?” She holds her serious face for only a moment and then gives in.

“Absolutely. Come on. Dinner is ready. And dude, if you spend any more time at the library, I think your brain might actually explode.” Waverly rolls her eyes but Wynonna continues. “Like, skull bits everywhere. Then I’m gonna have to be the one to clean them up, and ugh, that just might really kill my buzz. Stop working so hard. It’s gross.”

“Dinner?”

“Yeah ok, mac and cheese from the box.”

Waverly looks at her suspiciously.

“Ok, well mac and ‘crimes against humanity fake cheese’ for you. Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered.”

Wynonna grins and opens Waverly’s door for her. They walk up to the apartment. Waverly silently thanks the heavens above that Wynonna doesn’t think to question the fact that she has no library books in her possession.

She decides that next time she’ll need to bring along props to support her growing web of lies.

 

* * *

 

The next day, Waverly somehow is able to sneak away in the night, when Wynonna is audibly snoring and Nicole is working a night shift at the hospital. She ensures her sister’s ring of keys doesn’t jingle and jangle when she picks them up from their spot on the kitchen table and makes her exit.

As she drives down the silent one-lane highway that is barely illuminated by the dim headlights on Wynonna’s truck, headlights that have fly remnants attached to the glass, almost like cataracts, if headlights were to cars as eyes are to people, she decides to turn on the radio. She hopes it will distract her from the guilt that she feels. She doesn’t think anything could do that but why not try, she wonders.

On the station that immediately starts playing music once she hits the power button, is an M83 song that she remembers the Wynonna of her world always referring to as ‘sad car-crash music from a Nicholas Sparks movie.’ Waverly smiles as the melodic strumming picks up. She recalls that she would always retort how the song was actually in a John Green movie where the boy with cancer dies and leaves behind the dying girl with only one lung. _Okay?_ Wynonna would say and _Okay_ is what Waverly would say, mimicking the star-crossed teenagers in a movie for young people that really shouldn’t be marketed as a movie for young people.

_Okay? Okay._

She misses Wynonna. Waverly misses how she would leave Peacemaker lying around everywhere. She misses how she used to forget where she left her keys (usually in the freezer after a drunken night out with Doc). She misses the way she cackles when something is funny and she misses the way she cackles when something really isn’t, but filling the void with laughter seems like a better option than talking about how sad the thing is. She misses her sister so damn much. She thought it would be easier to forget, since she has a Wynonna here to keep her company. And she already loves this one too. But if anything, it just makes Waverly miss her sister more. This Wynonna is a constant reminder. A contrasted image set to the negative space she feels in place of where the curse-breaking Earp used to be. At her side.

_I was supposed to be there. I was supposed to stay._

Waverly feels guilt for leaving her sister on her own. She feels guilt for lying to this one. She feels like a schmuck for sneaking out and stealing her car and using her money to pay for gas and wearing her clothes and asking so much of the people in her household, including an alternate reality version of her own girlfriend who she accidentally kissed when she thought she really was her girlfriend.

_What a mess._

Waverly is so lost in thought that she almost misses her turnoff that leads into an empty and dark forest. She is suddenly thankful that her sister drives a durable SUV and not a, well, a mini cooper or something, because the ground beneath the tires changes to a bumpy gravel road with wide potholes. The lack of road maintenance reminds her how far out she is. How separated from society she has voluntarily put herself.

Which is the point, of course.

The radio has long since lost its signal, spewing white noise that diffuses around her. She drives for another 20 minutes and turns off the gravel road when she sees the wooden ‘Earp’ sign jutting out from the trunk of a wide-girth tree on the right. When she pulls into the dirt driveway and sees yellow light flickering through the window of the cabin, she feels her heartrate speed up.

She cuts the engine and makes her way to the front door, not bothering to knock before placing the small brass key on Wynonna’s key set into the door’s lock. She turns it and enters, putting them away in her jacket pocket. She closes the door behind her and takes in the view of Bobo Del Rey leaning over the hearth toasting a marshmallow with the fire poker.

“Bobo, where did you get those? If you left this house, I swear—”

Without turning around to acknowledge her, he speaks, as if he’s talking to the flames themselves. “Relax, Angel. They were in that cupboard.” He lifts his left arm and points to the small kitchen near the front door. Waverly remembers Wynonna telling her about how Ward used to use this cabin when he went hunting. There is a small wobbly table to her right, with a shelf lining each wall that houses books on bird species, a small collection of old, mostly-broken binoculars, and a few picture frames. In the far corner of the cabin is a wooden chair. A small loveseat couch sits between Waverly and Bobo, who is now standing and facing her at the fireplace. Just to the left of him is a hallway that leads back to the only bedroom.

It is a small, unloved cabin, perfect for shitty fathers to escape to after dropping off the only kids they have left with their goodhearted relatives and drink themselves to sleep. They could then be poised to wake up late the next day, drink some more, and kill animals for sport in an attempt to prove they are real men.

Waverly figures Bobo will fit right in.

She sets the grocery bag she is holding in her arms down on the table and moves to stand behind the couch.

“You keep coming back little Earp.” He stands with his back to the fire. She secretly hopes he burns himself. He is dressed in an old green flannel and jeans that are too big for him. He must have found some clothes that Ward had left behind, Waverly thinks. It doesn’t bother her. Ward was a bastard in both realities, from the sounds of it. Bobo can have the lot for all she cares. It’s not like he was her real father.

_Can’t think about him. Not now. Not when I’m standing in a room with_ —

“Don’t have much of a choice, do I? You still have information that you owe me.”

“Is that so?” He brings his fingers to his temple, feigning an inability to remember. “Well, where are my manners? Let me put the kettle on.” He walks to the kitchen and fills the iron tea kettle on the stove with water. She rolls her eyes and takes a seat on the couch.

“Earl Grey or Green?” He says as he pours steaming water into chipped mugs.

“Green, please.” She shakes her head in disbelief as the words come out of her mouth. She stands, suddenly impatient, and extremely weirded out that she’s really here with Bobo Del Rey, who is brewing her tea. She starts pacing, trying to think of what she’s going to do with him. She knows she is already going off of blind faith that he won’t just kill her and leave town, but late night tea parties? What is she thinking?

She takes the cup when he holds it out to her and gently blows on it. She sits in the wooden chair next to the fire. She looks out the window just to her left. There are spiderwebs, some old and some new, that reflect the moonlight. She watches as the branches outside scratch against the cracked glass, the sound of which makes her shiver. One flake of snow drifts diagonally past the window pane, then more follow. _Great. I really should have checked the weather._

Waverly counts the flakes until there are too many. She lets the sound of the crackling fire calm her nerves with its frenetic roar. Without looking at him, she sips her tea. It burns the tip of her tongue. She carefully observes the snowfall quicken and then speaks. “What is it you want, Bobo?”

She finally turns her head to see him lounging on the couch, head propped on the far arm and feet crossing each other, settled on the other. He cradles his own cup with the bottom of his saucer flat against his sternum.

“Waverly, you know what I want,” he says to the ceiling, as if he’s still strapped down to that hospital bed.

She looks at him for a moment and takes another sip. “You want to be free.”

“I’ve always known you were the smart one. That sister of yours gets too much credit, don’t you think?”

“Watch it.” She makes sure not to hold the cup too tightly. She doesn’t want to deal with scalding liquid spilling all over her if she shatters the mug out of petty anger. “You’re already free of the curse and of Bulshar, right? What more do you need to be free of?”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Why is it you’re here, Waverly?"

“You know why. I don’t belong here.” She closes her eyes. She can almost see red hair shining in sunlight. She can almost hear the swish of a flaming blue sword and the rustling of black leather. “I want to go home.” She does her best to hide the sorrow in her voice.

“I already told you little Earp, you are home.” He smiles at her.

“Yeah. You can drop the act, Bobo. I remember. I know you’re lying.”

He turns to her. She feels his eyes trained on her face, an unreadable expression on his. Waverly isn’t sure what he’s searching for, but she is quickly getting bored with this conversation.

“I’m going to ask this again,” she looks out through the crack in the window and feels a draft make its way under her jacket. “Why are you here? Why are we both here? The Revenants too.”

Bobo sighs and sits up, leaning forward and placing his empty cup on the coffee table. “The way I see it, Angel, is that you’re here for the same reason as me.” He speaks in a slow and quiet hiss now. “We survive, you and me. It turns out, that’s exactly what I want, when all of this,” he holds his arms out, and looks all around him, gesturing to his entire world, Waverly thinks, “has ended.”

Waverly stands and puts her mug on the mantle of the hearth. “What does that mean? ‘When this has ended,’ what does that mean, Bobo?”

“It means,” he draws out his words in his famous whisper like what he’s telling her is a secret he would only share with her, “that I’m not supposed to be here. You are right, Earp, I should be dead.” He laughs at this, as if it’s all a joke to him. “Something has captured my… essence. Frozen it in time. Something brought me back when I should be dust. But you? You, Angel, are right where you should be.”

She feels her patience thinning and points at him with her hand, gesturing with one arm while the other is crossed holding onto the crook of her elbow. “Listen, I know I’m supposed to be looking for something. Something in this world. Please Bobo, what do you have to lose in helping me?” She feels herself getting desperate. She feels like she might be on the verge of tears. She _cannot cry_ in front of this man. She can’t do that. “You’re wrong. I don’t belong here. And I’m going home with or without your help. But if you _do_ decide to do the one thing that I know deep down you _want_ to do. To _help_ me. Then please. Just do it. You were a man before. Weren’t you? And now you’re a man again. You’re not a demon anymore. So be a man. Help me. If you do, I’ll keep you safe.”

It tumbles out before she even knows what she’s saying. Making deals with former demons would probably seem like more of a leap if she hadn’t already sprung him from a psych ward and hidden him away from everyone that is already helping her.

He stares at her and runs his hands through his scraggly beard. He stands and walks to the fire, taking the iron poker and kneeling so he has a better angle when he goes to stoke the embers. He continues playing with the logs, not looking up at Waverly when he speaks. “You’re right, Waverly. I am just a man now. But, like you said, I am also a liar. From what I can tell, you are too. So…do they know?” He lifts the metal poker and points it at her hip. “Has that cop of yours seen it yet?”

Waverly wraps her jacket tighter around her front, crossing both arms, hugging herself. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” _How does he know? How could he possibly know about—_

“Oh, Waverly. My dear, brave Angel. I know what you hide. I see it in your eyes. I understand why one would want to hide such ugliness from the world, but you can’t keep them out forever.” He lowers the fire iron and places it against the brick wall of the fireplace.

Horror paints across her face. Tears well in her eyes. _How does he know?_

In a shaky voice she speaks to the man who has just sat back down on the couch. “Bobo, why does Nicole keep dreaming about you?”

“That, my Angel, I do not know the answer to.” He yawns. She realizes how tired she is, herself. She knows she needs to leave. This was not a helpful visit. A waste of gas. A waste of time. Bobo isn’t going to help her, she thinks.

She makes her way to the front door, resolve building to find Nicole and tell her she knows where Patient 42 is hiding. As she opens the door, a hand is on her shoulder. His face is in shadows, but his voice is clear.

“Waverly Earp, I was a man once. I don’t know if I can ever truly be one again. But—” he pauses, looks out the window at the falling snow and then lands his gaze on her eyes, “maybe you can show me how.”

“Bobo, I don’t know if—”

“Waverly. There is something in me. It was always there when I was a Revenant, but now, it—it itches. It echoes. It’s louder every day, and I can’t…turn it off. You. You, my Angel can help me make sense of it.”

She sighs. Waverly can’t help but feel like she is playing with fire. What choice does she have? This _man_ is the only person in this world other than herself that comes from her own. How can she ignore what he might know? Bobo Del Rey may be her only chance to make it back to Purgatory. “If I do this. If I help you, you’ll help me find a way home?”

“I will try, little Earp. I will try.”

 

* * *

 

Waverly leaves the driveway of the Earp cabin at 2:13 am. She is too far away and far too tired to notice the set of police-regulation headlights that cut through the quickly falling snow.

They quietly follow her all the way back to Calgary, hidden from view by the timely arrival of the unexpected storm.


	15. why don't you just fade away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we finally meet our Big Bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was listening to Dark Side of the Moon when I wrote the dream sequence...
> 
> But I highly recommend listening to Daudologn by Sigur Ros (lol I'm pretentious, don't hate) when you get to the scene with Jeremy and Waverly driving in the car. Just trust me.

_The water that laps at the edges of her bare feet is warm. Pleasant, even. It glows with the reflection of the luminescent fungi growing on the walls of the cavern. It’s a greenish-yellow neon that reminds her of those glowstick bracelets she would adorn around her wrists and ankles and even her neck during Purgatory Pride._

_Waverly feels herself carried forward by her own gliding legs. Each little splash of liquid against the soles of her feet echo around her. The cavern walls seem endless in height. She can see as high as about a hundred feet but after that, darkness swallows the ceiling of the subterranean cave, if there is a ceiling. Part of her thinks it might be infinite. Sort of like how she feels right now. Like she might walk forward in this underground river illuminated only by this unknown species of spiral wall plant for the rest of eternity. She feels like she’s in a dream. Maybe she is._

_The spaces between each growth on the wall to her right are filled with tiny streams of flowing water, running over the craggy holes and crystalline formations and stalagmites and stalactites. Waverly finds herself realizing she never could remember which is which._

_With each step she takes closer to eternity, Waverly feels herself becoming more and more tired. As if nothing could satisfy her growing need to lay down in the shallow river and dream about the soft flowing water that curls around her toes._

_Something within her awakens. Comes to awareness. She wants to stop moving but can’t. She wants to plant her feet down in the sandy water and turn back. She feels the presence of something ahead. Something dark._

_Something wrong._

_She does everything she can to stop her movements. Waverly strains muscles against muscles and grips desperately at her knees with groping hands and attempts to turn her body but nothing stops her feet from lifting and moving ahead in one direction._

_She can hear him now. He is a few hundred feet ahead, gracefully poised, back to her, in the darkness of his own making. She is too far away to even see the back of his head, but she knows he is smiling. It’s a knowing smile. One that transcends time and space and the creation of the universe and the expanding of the universe and the death of the universe and it makes her shiver with a frigidness that tells her she’ll never be warm again._

_She hears the rustle of a wool cloak. Somehow, she knows the bottom hem of it is dragging in the water.  He is walking forward in the same direction she is, but she knows she is moving faster. She laments the fact that she will catch up eventually._

_She is closer now. He is only twenty feet ahead. She sees that when he walks forward, he does so with purpose, as if he is not bound to the same force pulling her forward. As if he is the one that leads her. He moves because he intends to. The rhythm of his steps haunts her. She dreads the moment when her stride will match his. When her paces will move in time next to his ageless feet._

_The moment comes. She feels the smile turn towards her. It widens. She knows this without happening a glance. She keeps her focus on the long walk ahead._

_When he calmly reaches out his cloaked hand and takes hers, what he says jolts her awake._

_“Welcome to the Land of Dreams, Waverly Earp.”_

* * *

 

_Well that was funky._

Waverly sits up on the couch in the living room and wipes the sweat from her brow. She suddenly feels grateful that she isn’t still walking in a dungeony cavern for the rest of eternity. That’s a nice feeling.

It is 4:30 am when she squints at the time on the microwave. About an hour before Nicole usually gets up. It means she has about an hour of solitude to do some reading on the Wyatt Earp of this reality.

As she unfurls her blanket cocoon from her body, she hears soft murmurings coming from the cop’s room. Nicole must be having another nightmare. She hates that she can’t help her. She really does. But boundaries. Boundaries are important. Without boundaries. They’d be…boundaryless.

Waverly passes Nicole’s closed door on her right and instead goes to her sister’s room at the end of the hall. She softly raps on the door and hears the cessation of heart-stopping snores. The door swings open and Wynonna stands before her with her hair a tangled mess over one of her eyes.

They don’t speak. Waverly hooks a thumb to the air and points with it to Nicole’s room. Wynonna silently nods as if this has become an expected nightly occurrence and walks past Waverly. She enters Nicole’s room without knocking on the door. As Waverly walks back to the main room, she glances in through the doorway that is now ajar. She happens a brief glance at red hair strewn across a pillow and Wynonna Earp kneeling with a hand caressing a pale forehead.

Waverly sinks into the couch just as a muffled “wake up, babygirl,” can be heard from the other room.

She decides she is in no mood, all of a sudden, to catch up on the life and times of Wyatt Earp. She re-cocoons herself in her blanket burrito, shuts her light off, and goes back to sleep.

 

* * *

 

 

Nicole’s shift at the hospital is fairly uneventful. She procrastinates going through the camera footage from the day Patient 42 disappears because she knows what she will find.

When she realizes she has been discreetly clicking between tabs on her computer for thirty minutes straight, she decides the task is unavoidable. Nicole is, of course, in no way surprised to find images in the database of the bearded sociopath strolling out through multiple sets of doors and hallways, accompanied by a small brunette.

She shakes her head. Anger that deeply resembles the frustration she felt last night when she followed, at Wynonna’s request, a particular little sister out into the middle of nowhere, resurfaces. _Goddamnit, Waverly._

“Haught—can I have a word?” Nedley is poking his head out his door.

“Sure boss, one second.” When he reenters his office, she opens the tab on her computer screen she had just frantically closed. It takes her all of ten seconds to effectively delete the video footage of Waverly Earp.

She wipes the growing sleep from her eyes and joins Nedley in his office.

“You can close the door, Nicole.” He sounds as tired as she feels.

“Sir, so. I know neither of us are really good at…talking about, things. But I know today must be hard for you, and I just want to let you know that I’m here. Even if I—” she glances at the picture frame behind Nedley of a little girl, then glances back to him, “even if I haven’t been…around, the way I should.”

She hears the clock ticking away. A silence stretches out between them. Its no secret things have been…tense between the two.

He leans back in his chair, eyes her carefully, then evades her comment. “Nicole are you doing alright? You seem…tired.”

“I’m great. Doing…great.” She smiles, convincing no one.

“Hey, here’s an idea. How about we do a family dinner Saturday night. I’ll call Gus. Just like old times. Yeah?” He looks at her hopefully. She knows there’s no way of getting out of this.

“Yeah sounds good.” She thinks for a second. _Crap._ “Um. Wynonna has a…friend, that’s been staying with us. Is it cool if she comes too?”

“Sure thing. The more the merrier.” He smiles his, ‘okay, let me get back to work’ smile. Before she completely closes his door, she hears him say, “Oh, right, almost forgot. How’s the escapee situation coming?”

Her heart races. Just like it used to when she would lie to Nedley as a teenager or when she would sneak out of Gus’s house with Wynonna. “Nothing so far,” she says as confidently as she can muster.

She closes the door behind her.

_Goddamnit, Waverly._

 

* * *

 

 

On Friday morning Waverly receives a text on the pay-by-the-minute phone she finally picked up a few days prior.

 

Unknown #

7:30am: Hey! Any chance you’d want to go on a hike today?

7:31am: Sorry! This is Jeremy.

7:32am: Jeremy Chetri

7:33am: Wynonna’s partner.

8:00am: lol. Hey Jer. Don’t worry I remember you! Yeah, that sounds like fun! Where are you thinking?

8:05am: Cool! There’s this neat trailhead near Lake Louise. Want to leave at 10?

8:07am: Okay. Perf. I can do 10. I’m excited!

8:08am: Sweet. See you then. 😊

 

 

* * *

 

 

Based on how much Jeremy is sweating in the car on the way there, Waverly quickly discerns they are not going hiking.

She twists in her seat to face him, holding her seatbelt forward with her hands since it would otherwise choke at her neck.

It’s a short person thing.

She stares at him. He uncomfortably tries to ignore her silent gaze but shifts awkwardly in his seat. His knuckles are turning white around the steering wheel. Waverly isn’t nervous or afraid of whatever it is he isn’t telling her. What she feels now is only anger. One of the things Waverly hates most when it comes to her friends is being left out of the loop. She remembers when Willa would do it to her. She would intentionally not tell Waverly about things her and Wynonna were going to do outside or games they would play or events they were going to go to. Little things. Like going down to the lake or going to play on the York boys’ farm. Waverly would often be left at home to spend time with a father who never hid the fact that he would prefer to be doing something else.

No. Jeremy doesn’t scare her. She’s just pissed about being kept in the dark.

He pulls into the parking lot of what appears to be an abandoned electrical plant. The dilapidated out-buildings look like their rooves might cave in at any moment, so she subconsciously leans her body away from them as Jeremy drives past. He passes the buildings and turns onto a dirt road with a streak of dead grass between the two tire tracks.

It leads down a hill.

_Wait. I’ve been here before._

“So…Waverly—”

She cuts him off. “Jeremy Chetri the next words out of your mouth better be the ever-loving truth or I swear to—to—”

“—you know that time I said I was a doctor?” he cuts in, unable to take much more, “okay, _all_ the times?” he qualifies.

“Jeremy, what did you—” Waverly was not expecting any of this. Especially from Jeremy.

“He’ll explain better, but yeah. The thing is…I don’t _technically_ have a license. You know. To practice. Medicine.” He grits his teeth in shame or embarrassment, maybe both.

“He?” Waverly is so confused in this moment, she doesn’t even know where to begin. “But, you’re my doctor? Jeremy this doesn’t make any sense…”

“I went all the way through med school, but never took the boards to get my license. Something…happened. I was—recruited.”

Waverly lets out a soft chuckle. _No way. Even here?_ It takes a moment, but then a whimsy of a thought occurs to her. _Wait. Does this mean—_

There’s a feeling that Waverly gets whenever she senses something big is coming. ‘Premonition’ is the wrong word. She doesn’t consider herself to have any sort of psychic tendencies or anything like that. It’s more like, she can feel the air change. Or somehow, she can sense the tension in her space tighten. Like a string is pulling on the center of her chest, one that tells her to brace herself.

“He’s waiting for us, actually.”

_Oh my god._

She looks out her window, searching.

_Oh my god._

Waverly knows she won’t be able to hold back the tears if she’s right. She tries to prepare herself. She does. But if—if he’s…here. If he’s okay? She curses at herself for not thinking of the possibility earlier. An entire month and she didn’t think it could be true?

She doesn’t think to ask any more questions about Jeremy’s deception. Her mind is focused on one thing and it involves keeping her heart from beating so hard she feels her ribs might crack. Jeremy tilts his head, gesturing her to exit the stopped car. She puts her hands in her pockets as she walks towards the cliff’s edge, otherwise, she knows they will shake, and she won’t be able to do this. If it really is _this_ that’s happening.  

The dried dead grass surrounds them. She can’t help but feel like she’s been here before. Like this is where… _no. It can’t be._

Then she sees him.

And she can’t move. His back is facing her, his clean black suit-jacket flapping in the wind. She thinks she might hear a single bird caw in the distance.

When she realizes that this is the same cliff’s edge, that this is the same precipice where Nicole’s rope gave way, the same bluff where she was dragged into the woods, leaving a mangled blue truck upside-down with her sister thrown out of it, that it’s the same edge of the universe where everything changed, she cries.

He is standing there. Perfect. Stoic as always.

And strong. He’s _so_ strong, she thinks.

When Jeremy says, “Sir,” and he turns around, all Waverly can hear is the sound of John Henry Holliday pleading for the same man in front of her to snap out of it.

 

 

_You wake up_

_You wake up, now_

 

 

Deputy Marshal Xavier Dolls takes his sunglasses off and instantly sees that the girl in front of him is crying. Without a word, he pulls out a handkerchief from the inside of his jacket and holds it out to her.  

She takes it and noisily blows her nose into it. She goes to hand it back, but he shakes his head in a way that says, ‘no, you need it more than me.’

“Waverly Earp. It’s lovely to meet you.”

She smiles, nodding her head, allowing the warm salty tears to run down her lips and into her mouth.

The sobbing laugh she lets out echoes into the wide open beyond the cliff, and she wonders, for only a moment, if this time, it is the cawing bird that hears _her_.


	16. everybody's looking for the ladder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm not even sure what to put here. Good luck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning - there is a graphic scene with self mutilation.

Waverly feels it settle into her bones. _He’s here._ _I’m talking to him._

_He’s here._

She nods along as he explains the need for secrecy. Why he had Jeremy lie. She vaguely registers it having something to do with “a delicate situation” where not even Wynonna knows because of her “importance to the mission.” And something about the need to bring only _her_ in on things when they knew she was ready. He says all of this. And other things, Waverly assumes. She honestly isn’t sure. Because every time she tries to listen, she realizes that it’s Dolls talking to her. That it’s Dolls standing in front of her. That it’s Dolls that is breathing the same air as her. She shuffles her feet and watches the ground as she does so, anything to hold back the cheesy-ass smile she so desperately wants to chuck off the edge of the cliff.

Despite her joy in seeing him, something else tightens in her chest. She realizes that Wynonna isn’t here to see this. Her Wynonna isn’t here to see him so…alive. Breathing and talking and letting the wind carry away the edges of his sleeves.

It isn’t until he says the word “curse” and “heir” that Waverly is shaken from her circling thoughts.

Her brain makes that record player scratch sound, if at all possible.

“Wait…what did you just say?” Her eyes leave the ground and find his.

“Well, miss Earp, if you had been listening, you would know that I said that it is difficult for us to know the extent of damage your being here is causing.” He gives her a blank expression.

She continues to stare, somewhat in shock. “Here…?”

Dolls impatiently turns to Jeremy. “I thought you said she remembers her place of origin?”

Jeremy looks worried. Like he’s in trouble with his teacher or something. “She did! Or…does. I mean.” He quickly pulls out his pen light, turns it on, and starts pointing it at Waverly’s pupils. “Are you feeling dizzy? Short of breath? Any weird auras in your field of vision?”

She swats Jeremy away. “Dude, back off, you’re not even a real doctor.”

“Hey, I went through the schooling—”

“Doesn’t matter. You lied to me. You lied to Wynonna. Stop playing the part, okay? It’s weirding me out.” She looks back to Dolls, who seems uncomfortable with the obvious show of emotion. Waverly pushes away her urge to smile at this. “And I do remember. It’s just…I wasn’t expecting—”

“—Me to be alive?”

_Jesus. He does know._

Waverly shakes her head in disbelief. “Let me just say, before we get into any of this…the fact that you just said _that_ with the same, casual “oh look at me, I’m a dragon it’s nbd” expression on your face—its just—just—its effed up okay?!”

“Fair enough, Earp, but it doesn’t change the situation.” Another blank stare.

Waverly instantly feels sympathy for a younger Wynonna. Communicating with this version of Dolls, who seems eerily like what he used to be like when they met him, is frustrating. She supposes this is what he would still be like if Wynonna had never been a part of his life. She changed him. They changed each other.

“So, you know about…everything?”

“If by everything you’re referring to Revenants, the curse of Wyatt Earp’s heirs, your sister, your time in the Garden of Eden, my own death, and the existence of parallel universes? Then yes.” He pauses, barely allows a tiny smirk to curve his lips, then continues. “Or are you referring to your role as accomplice in the hiding away of the former demon sociopath, Robert Svane?”

_Oh crap._

“Ummmmm—”

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to bring you in for that. But I do need you to do something. Svane knows the location of a…technology. If he turns it over to Black Badge, well—the investigation into his disappearance will be considered closed.”

Waverly considers this. “I assume you know this already, but I was a part of Black Badge, Dolls. We all were. Together. Do you remember? Or, are you another—?”

“No. That wasn’t me. If that’s what you’re asking.”

She sadly looks to the ground. For a moment she thought maybe he was like Bobo. Like he was her Dolls. Somehow. She pushes the thought aside and returns to her original question. She gestures to the three of them. “Well we were in BBD together. So, I know the extent of their resources. What they’re capable of. And I know I was followed the other day. Why not just apprehend him yourselves and get what you need from him that way? Why do you need me?” She desperately wants to understand why she’s been brought into the fold. An organization like the Black Badge Division has always worked under the guise of extreme secrecy. Not even Wynonna knows about the extent of Jeremy and Dolls’ involvement. What the hell do they want with her?

“Miss Earp, the people I work for, they don’t just deal in monsters and beasts, ghouls, and vampires. No. You and I, better than most, I imagine, both know there is more than one of everything. Copies and versions and alterations and tangents in timelines. Infinitely. Black Badge specializes in the existence of these universal…renditions. We have experts in every field, including those that study cosmology and humankind’s relationship with the universe. We need you because _you_ are special. Your Angelic blood allows you to travel inter-dimensionally. And only you can retrieve this device from Svane. Only you can activate it.”

_Holy shirtballs._

“And that wasn’t us.”

“What wasn’t?” She’s confused again.

“We didn’t follow you. You’re probably referring to,” he holds up his smartwatch and checks a piece of information with a swipe of his thumb across the tiny screen before continuing, “one, Nicole Haught.” He drops his hand to his side and looks back to Waverly. “Not only that, but I was informed early this morning of an attempt to delete video footage of you helping Svane escape.”

_Goddamnit, Nicole._

“Don’t worry, Earp. You and Haught have nothing to fear from us. As long as you help.”

 _Oh, extortion_. _How fun._

“We need you now because something has happened. My colleagues have picked up on troubling data using tools that are meant to monitor the status of certain timelines. You can think of this _equipment_ as, similar to a Geiger counter, but it instead is built with the ability to detect subatomic particles that don’t originate in this world.” He pauses for a moment and waits for a confirming nod from Waverly that says, ‘no my brain hasn’t exploded yet, but maybe soon.’ He continues. “Normally, a regular, steady, very, very small amount of these particles leaks through the seams of universes, which you might want to think of as pushed right up against each other.” He claps his hands flush to each other to provide the visual. “But ever since your arrival, there have been…irregularities.”

“Irregularities?”

“Yes. You see Waverly. You are not from this world. When you crossed into it, you brought _aspects_ with you. Ones that never should have existed in this universe.”

“You mean the curse. The Earp Curse.”

“That is correct. Even though the curse was broken, its existence was still imprinted in time. In your universe, that is. When you came here, you brought, the history, so to speak, of this curse. The Revenants that lurk in the hospital where Jeremy here “works”? They are echoes of that history. And while they seem to be harmless, simply existing as directionless ghosts that wander with no purpose, these…remnants that are neither human nor demon do not belong in this world. Their presence may have unforeseen consequences. Ones we can’t predict.

“What about Bobo? He’s not the same as them, is he?”

“No. Svane is different. We don’t know how he came to be. What worries me, Earp, is that he stole away this device. And we desperately need it to monitor the current situation in your world. Without it, we have no way to know whether the seams of other timelines are… _intact._ ”

“What does it do?”

“It’s likened to a one-way looking glass. A mirror. We don’t know it’s origins. Jeremy here, along with a long history of scientists, experts in the composition of metal alloys, have never seen anything like it. They have issued report after report saying it isn’t made of any material found on earth. Or…this earth at least. It came into Black Badge’s possession in the 60’s.” Doll’s rubs his eyes. The movement tells Waverly that he probably enjoys more of the tactical aspects of his job, not so much the theoretical politics and history. “There are legends of such a device going back millennia. Stories that speak of Divine beings peering into different times. New worlds. The last person that was able to activate it was an Angel, himself.  I believe you may have been…closely acquainted.”

“My father?”

Dolls nods.

“Is he alive?”

Dolls shakes his head. Her heart drops a notch. She hadn’t expected he was.

When Jeremy begins speaking, Waverly feels her anger resurface, but somehow, she manages to hold her tongue.

“Waverly, these stories are super old. Philosophers of the old world often referred to an ‘Eye of God,’ something that reflects all of creation. Nicholas of Cusa, sometime in the 1450’s, wrote that ‘to understand the world, it is necessary to look to God.’ In the Divine Comedy, Dante meets Adam, and asks him about Original Sin. In his response, Adam says,

‘For I behold it truly in the glass

In which all things their perfect image show,

Yet which in naught its perfect image has.

This is thy wish…’

 

“Did you have to recite that in a 3rd grade play or something?” Waverly chuckles to herself.

He ignores her with a ‘ha ha very funny’ squint of the eye. “Do you know Bosch’s, The Seven Deadly Sins?”

“Of course.” Waverly crosses her arms. _What do you think I am, a plebian?_ Waverly thinks about how she can’t wait to visit The Prado in Madrid and see it in person, along with the Garden of Earthly Delights. Especially now that she’s been to the Garden in the flesh. Not many people can say _that._ She wants to go with Nicole. She wants to do a lot with Nicole, she thinks.

“Well, it depicts all of human sin. The viewer is said to look upon it and see into the Eye of God. From this, they see the reflection of their own disfigurement. Of the sin that lies within. But in the very center of the Divine Eye, he also painted Christ. So, you see, there’s this duality. There’s a divergent path. One based on the sin of man, and one based on the transformative properties of all man could be. This idea has been around for ages. Eventually we figured out that the alluded ‘divergence’ meant more than just the morality of man. It was also referring to the divergence of existence. Of worlds. So, to use this…mirror, someone with the power of a Divine being must be the one to activate it. Only someone that transcends Original Sin can draw upon the power of the whole of the Universe, and all Universes.

Dolls interjects at this, clearly bored of the history lesson, “We call it, The Gaze.”

A smile she wouldn’t even attempt to control gradually paints itself over her face. “Wait. Wait.” She holds her hand up, “you call it the GAAAZE???”

For the first time that day, Waverly is hysterical. Dolls looks baffled by the girl leaning over herself laughing. He is speechless and looks to Jeremy who has a small smile of his own. She collects herself for long enough to say, “and you need _me_ …ME…to get it back?” She loses it again.

He answers as if her question was not rhetorical. “Yes. We believe you are the only one that can find out where it is, due to your connection to Svane. And your…abilities.”

That snaps her out of it. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Miss Earp, you have power over him. A hold that no one at BBD seems to understand. We need this device returned to our agency. We need to be able to see the status of your world. If we can understand the aftermath of the curse there, we may be able to figure out how to deal with it here. We may, then, be able to account for the tears in the fabric of the space-time continuum that _you_ caused.”

“Okay, that part I get, but abilities?” Is he talking about what she can do when she has her father’s ring on, she wonders?

“You are an Angel, yes?” Dolls scrunches his eyebrows in confusion at her reluctance to understand.

She shrugs. “Part-Angel…but—”

“And you are the Angel tasked with protecting the Garden of Eden, yes?

“Yeah, but—”

“And you named your sister as the Guardian Champion?” She doesn’t like where this is going. She feels like an anvil is about to drop onto her skull. And she likes her skull. She’d prefer to keep her skull the way it is.

“Well then Miss Earp, your power should have appeared by now, I imagine.” He holds his wrist up and examines his smartwatch again, swiping through, what Waverly surmises, are tiny, itty bitty documents. _Lame._ “Yes, according to my information on the nature of your timeline, you should have come into your powers by now.”

“Come into my…what is this _Charmed_???” She doesn’t like this anvil. It’s an annoying anvil.

Jeremy interjects, “as long as it’s the original and not the reboot.” He giggles at himself until he sees Waverly and Doll’s faces.

When they simultaneously say, “NOT NOW, Jeremy,” his proud smile disappears, and he is serious again.

“Dolls, I don’t have access to the ring. I don’t have any _powers._ ” She says this, almost ashamed. She wouldn’t want them even if she did have them.

He cocks his eyebrow, in that Dolls way of his. “What makes you think the ring has anything to do with the power behind the Angel of Memory?”

“The—what?” If her face could be captured in the perfect quote it’s, ‘you’re a wizard, harry—ima whaaat?’

“The Angel of Memory. How do you not know of your origins?” He shakes his head and starts walking away from the cliff’s edge. Jeremy and Waverly follow his lead. She realizes just how cold she is. Dolls apparent disappointment in Waverly’s lack of understanding regarding her own nature doesn’t help dampen the shiver that is travelling up and down her spine. She’s supposed to be the one on top of things. The one in the know. She’s supposed to be the reference book.

 _The Angel of Memory_? What in hell does that mean?

“Legend has it that when the Garden takes its Angel, ‘she will be endowed with the gift of memory once awoken from her crystalline state.’ Have you not read the ancient Sumerian texts on the subject?”

She doesn’t even respond to this slight. She just stares at him in warning. He actually looks a little scared. Good, she thinks.

“So, what? You’re saying I really _did_ turn to stone in the Garden and woke up with magical, Angel power things?”

“That is exactly what I am saying.”

“Well, tough luck buddy,” she playfully punches his arm, getting a typical stoic reaction in response. “I remember nothing of the sort. Ironically.”

Their leisurely stroll has brought them back to the car. Dolls opens the passenger side door and Waverly climbs in, too cold to object.

He leans one arm on the top edge of the door. “Look, Earp, once you find The Gaze, my bosses have agreed to allow you one use of the device. Consider it a…reward for helping. I imagine you miss home. If it were me, I’d want to know that my loved ones are safe and okay.”

Waverly gives pause. She knows Dolls is a solitary guy. She wonders if he is less so in this universe. But the idea of seeing them? She doesn’t know if it would help or hurt. It would give her peace of mind, that’s for sure. And she doesn’t see any reason why she shouldn’t help Dolls. She doesn’t trust Black Badge, sure, but she trusts the man standing next to her. It doesn’t seem like she has much of a choice now that Nicole is involved.

_Ugh._

“Okay, I’ll do my best. But I don’t know about this whole Power business. Even if they’re _dormant_ or something, I have no idea how to access them.” She looks down at her hands, which lay flat on top of her thighs. She feels pretty, dang useless right now.

“Earp, you forget,” He tilts his head forward, closes his eyes, and rubs his brow, impatiently. As if he’s regretting the fact that he’s being troubled with something as trivial is this girl’s insecurities. “Your blood is Divine. Be patient. Time will choose for you.”

 

 

* * *

 

As Waverly’s foot slips with a little too much zeal on the gas pedal, she consequently hears the low thump and then a tumbling clang of tin cans and plastic bottles rolling over the faded parking lot asphalt. She lets a quiet expletive leave her lips (like ‘fudgenuggets’ or ‘holy fishsticks.’ Something that only Waverly would consider to be a swear word) and jumps out of the driver seat. She scrambles to right the horizontal recycling bin and return the contents as quickly as possible.

Even though the trivial task is slowing her down, she picks up each recyclable with a willing cheerfulness. It’s a feeling she acknowledges has been pointedly absent from her ever since she landed in this world. Waverly isn’t sure if its her attainment of new information that may assist her in finding a way home, or if it’s the newfound discovery of being able to actually _see_ her Nicole and Wynonna. To _know_ they’re okay. For some reason, it makes her feel like her again. Like her life makes sense.

Waverly wonders if that’s a weakness she still needs to work on. That even though she’s grown so much since Wynonna came back into her life and since she met Nicole, she still defines herself based on those around her. Without them here, she’s felt wobbly. Like her entire existence is perpetually called into question. She realizes how easy it is to have an identity crisis when you’re starting from scratch.

She rolls an empty soda can against the grainy asphalt with her palm. She picks it up and absentmindedly folds the tab back and forth, counting in her head how many times she can do it without it breaking away. When it finally separates, she thinks about how she used to be someone that was so sure of herself. So pure with intention and an almost unquenchable craving for adventure. The kind of person that wanted to fly off a cliff but was too scared to jump. The kind of person that would eat geoduck. Before Nicole, she wouldn’t have taken those leaps because of that fear. But now that she’s alone? She isn’t back to that same place of being afraid, no. But the desire to take risks has felt more and more empty since she fell through that ceiling portal. It’s not as fun to go careening off the face of a cliff if you have no idea whether you’ll fly or not. She’s felt like she’s had no choice but to take repeated leaps that may or may not bring her safely to the ground. She knows if she doesn’t lie or sneak around or make deals with demons and government agents, she’ll stay stuck. She’ll never go home. The risks have been obligatory. Void of joy. With none of the exciting payoff that she used to feel from going against sense and proving to herself and anyone around her that she is Waverly Earp. That she is capable.

But today? Today, suddenly, Waverly feels the droplets of an invisible raincloud that’s been following her everywhere she goes, finally letting loose and trickle all around her. She feels the resulting shining-through of a sun that’s been hidden from view. She feels the warmth of figurative rays beat against the inside walls of her chest and literal ones heat her face. She’s been craving this feeling. An energetic, familiar giddiness. The thing that makes her, her. She doesn’t think it has anything to do with being this so-called, _Angel of Memory_ , a thought that makes her smile to herself as she stands. _How absurd_ she thinks. No. It definitely has everything do to with knowing she’ll be looking at their faces soon. One brunette who never fails to make her laugh and one redhead who makes her feel like she _can_ fly. And even if The Gaze doesn’t allow her to speak to them or let them know she’s okay, at least she’ll see them. At least she’ll know. She figures that will have to be enough for now.

As she jumps behind the wheel of Wynonna’s truck that she certainly has zero permission to drive and speeds out of the city while a set of keys—ones that go to a cabin where she is hiding a formerly demonic fugitive—dangle from the ignition against her leg, she relishes that joy she’s been missing. That electric euphoria of taking matters into her own hands. Of dictating her own reality. Of doing something that she knows she’ll receive disapproval for later but makes her simultaneously unable to give a shit.

Wind gusts through the open window and streams through her hair. She feels free. On the edge of a breakthrough, maybe.

Then she sees it.

Red and blue lights and the flashing of high beams that she can somehow see even in the full light of day invade her mirrors. She feels a panic overcome her, seeing as she has no driver’s license, or documentation of any kind that proves she exists. For a moment Waverly considers trying to pull a Ryan Gosling-escape straight out of the movie, Drive. She decides against it since she’s not sure anyone could possibly execute something so brilliantly without the help of that scorpion jacket. She pulls over instead, dust from the side of the road cascading up into the air around her.

Waverly is actively brainstorming ways to get out of this. She readies her cleavage by taking off Wynonna’s “In my house it’s always taco-Tuesday” sweatshirt and fluffs her hair accordingly. Her shoulders slump when she sees in her rear-view mirror a woman-shaped police officer exit the cruiser. She laughs to herself and then proceeds to push her breasts together in a ‘this could easily still work on a woman’ sort of way but widens her eyes when she sees that the female cop that is fast-approaching her window is not only the height of a giraffe, but ginger af.

_Shitballs._

* * *

Nicole adjusts her sunglasses so that they are more centered on her face, and approaches Wynonna’s truck. As she perfects her confident cop-saunter to the driver’s window, she thinks to herself how lucky she was that she had arrived home from work when she did. Still in uniform. Just in time to see one Waverly Earp driving off in a vehicle that Nicole remembers she is strictly not supposed to be driving. She wonders if she’s this much of a nightmare for everyone in her own world. The lying and sneaking off is exhausting for someone as adept in knowing how to pick up on the subtle cues of subterfuge like Nicole is.

She takes the back of her knuckles and knocks them hard against the window that Waverly had just closed to keep the kicked-up dirt out. Nicole has decided she’s going to have fun with this.

Waverly uses the hand-crank to slowly bring the window down, avoiding eye contact with Nicole’s shades at all costs.

“What seems to be the problem, Officer?” Waverly has decided she’ll have fun with this too.

If she could see behind the redhead’s glasses, she would witness the world’s grandest eye-roll.

“Ma’am do you have any idea how fast you were going?” She doesn’t break character. Not for a second.

“I’m guessing above the speed limit?” Waverly nervously taps her fingers against the steering wheel while making a just-as-nervous smile on her face.

Despite Nicole’s calm and blasé demeanor, she’s mad as hell. Seriously, who does this girl think she is? She’s known them for all of four weeks, taken up space in their living room, eaten their food, used Wynonna’s cash, worn her best friend’s clothes, and has repeatedly left only cold water at the end of the day to shower with. On top of all that, they just about make head-way in their friendship or whatever the hell it is, and then _nothing._ Ever since the night of her seizure, she acts like Nicole is just this—well, a lackey. A throwaway side character in her older sister’s life, when all she wants to do is help, which, by the way, her own reasons for are beyond even her.

“License and Registration, please.” Cool as a cucumber.

“Hey! Come on that’s not fai—”

“Ma’am are you telling me you’re driving this vehicle without a license?”

Waverly scrunches her eyebrows together. “I have a license. It’s just not…here.”

“Oh, so if I look you up in the system you’ll be there? Okay.” Nicole makes like she’s going to walk back to her car but is stopped by the woman yelling out through her open window.

“Wait, what are you doing? I’m sorry. I just, I need to be somewhere.”

Nicole takes the bait. “Oh yeah? Where is that?”

“I have an…appointment. Yep. Late for an appointment.”

Nicole takes her sunglasses off. All Waverly sees are brown eyes that make her feel so damn guilty. “Are you really going to add ‘lying to a police-officer’ onto,” she pulls out a small flip notebook and pretends to read off, “speeding, reckless endangerment with a motor vehicle, and grand theft auto?” She flicks her wrist so that the hanging top of the little notebook flies shut with a slap of paper on paper. She stows it away and waits for an answer.

“Nicole, can we _please_ not do this right now?”

“Do what? Hold you up? I’m so sorry that your own lying is getting in the way of you hanging out with your sociopath. Yeah, come on Waverly. I may be a cop, but I’m not stupid. You really think I didn’t know where you’ve been sneaking off to?”

“Okay, hold on a second! Yes, I’ve been lying like the U.S. President and yes, I took the car without permission, but you can let go of the act? I know Wynonna asked you to trail me. I know you’re not here because you want to be. So please, just let me go do this. I need to. He knows something.”

“One, stop assuming you know the reasons I do things. You don’t. Two, get out of the car.” Nicole opens the door, authoritatively.

“Nicole! This is so unnecessary.”

“Is that right? So, you really think that it isn’t necessary for me to keep you from having a seizure while you’re going 100 miles an hour?”

“Oh, please, I was not going that fast.”

“Wanna bet?”

Waverly grits her teeth at this realization. “Yikes.”

“Yeah. Yikes. Now, get out, Waverly. Don’t make me ask three times.”

“Well you never _technically_ asked to begin with, but you probably don’t care about semantics, do you?” Waverly essentially mumbles this to herself as she slides out of the front seat. She shrugs her shoulders. “Okay, what now, Officer…,” she pretends to lean in and squint at Nicole’s badge, “…Hawt. What is that, welsh?”

“Very funny, go sit in the cruiser.” Waverly shakes her head as she walks to the police-car and slides into the passenger seat. Nicole puts the window up, and locks the truck, putting the keys away in her pocket. Wynonna is going to flip out when she finds out about this, she thinks to herself as she opens her own door.

“You know, Nicole, you probably don’t know this, but I really don’t appreciate being treated like a child.”

“Then don’t act like one.” She snaps back.

They sit in uncomfortable silence for what seems like forever.

“Why are you even out here? I thought hospital-cops don’t get to leave campus.” It comes out way more bitter than Waverly intended. “That’s not what I mea—”

Nope that’s too far, Nicole thinks. Too damn far. “Listen, this may not be the life that you know, or the world that you know. But this is me. This is my life! You can’t just walk in and tell me the things I do aren’t real or worthy—.” She sighs heavily. More silence. “Yeah, I may work in a hospital, Waverly. And yes, maybe you’re right, maybe I’ve always pictured myself elsewhere. Outside. With space. An actual community that looks to me. But you know what? You don’t get to judge me, Waverly. Because the second you assume you know what is _supposed_ to matter to me? You actually just ignore everything that I’ve gone through to get to where I am. Everything that I’ve lost.” She quiets for a moment.

Waverly turns her head to face Nicole.

“I don’t know why you’re here. I’m sorry. I don’t know why. But our crap,” she waves her arms around in an all-encompassing motion, gesturing to her and Wynonna’s world, “is just as real as yours, so stop—stop pretending like your existence is more valid. Like your version of Nicole is the only one that’s supposed to exist. It’s not fair, Waverly. I know you probably don’t mean it. You’re just trudging through this shit-storm like we are. But stop. You’re being a—a solipsist.”

Waverly stares at her, eyes studying intently. “I’m sorry, I’m a what now?” She is genuinely confused.

“That’s right. You’re a solipsist! You know, I’m surprised you don’t know what that is. With all your knowledge on—well, the four languages you’re fluent in!

Waverly raises her eyebrow. “Do tell. What is a solipsist, Nicole?”

Nicole focuses ahead on the back of the red truck sitting in front of them. “It’s someone that thinks their reality is the most true. Like, anything beyond what’s in your own head,” she turns and pokes Waverly on her temple, “other people’s perceptions of the universe, anything external really, is faulty. Not as trustworthy a viewpoint. And you know what? I’m sick of being treated like I’m faulty. Like me and Wynonna are both products of a world that you think exists just for the sake of being different from yours. It’s bullshit, Waverly.”

The confusion Waverly felt a moment ago disappears. She carefully studies Nicole’s face, who is now looking back at her. Nicole feels like her hands might start shaking. She holds them in her lap, so that Waverly doesn’t see. She’s been wanting to say that for a long time. She’s not sure if now was right for it to come out, but she couldn’t hold it in much longer.

“That’s how I make you feel? Like you’re faulty?” Nicole can’t help but notice the softened tone of deep regret lacing Waverly’s voice. Like she committed a crime. Well, another one. A more important one.

“Only sometimes.” Nicole says with lessened harshness.

“I don’t know what to say.” Waverly says, not breaking eye-contact. Nicole regrets being honest when she sees Waverly start to tear up. “I’m so sorry, Nicole.”

“Look, it’s fine. Let’s just move on okay?” Nicole says in as soothing a tone as she can muster. She eyes Waverly when the smaller woman turns back in her seat. The redhead’s gaze lingers a few seconds longer than necessary, concern having difficulty leaving her face.

Nicole makes an easy decision. She starts the cruiser’s engine and pulls out onto the highway. She drives past Wynonna’s truck and is already two miles further away from Calgary when Waverly notices they’re going in the wrong direction.

“Wait, we’re not going back?” She says, eyes still red from before.

“No. You said he knows something. So, let’s go find out what he knows.”

Waverly doesn’t stop staring with a huge-ass smile on her face, at Nicole, for another three miles.

Nicole is glad she doesn’t.

 

* * *

 

“Bobo, are you decent?” Waverly yells down the back hallway, right before she realizes he’s not in the cabin.

Nicole stands awkwardly by the small table, resting her hands on the back of one of the chairs. She watches as Waverly turns around with a look of fury that she definitely doesn’t want to get in the crosshairs of. Just before Waverly can say anything, the front door opens and Bobo Del Rey walks in, wearing a different flannel shirt. This red is a dark blue. He goes to the kitchen counter and places a small bottle down on the surface.

“I see you brought company this time, Earp?”

“Where the heck were you? I told you not to leave the cabin.” Waverly is irate.

“Calm yourself, Angel. I had an errand.” He puts an old, ratty cooking apron on and ties it delicately around his neck. He all but ignores the two women who can’t help but stare at each other in disbelief.

“And what was so important that you needed to risk everything?” Waverly is walking forward, towards Bobo. Nicole can’t understand how Waverly can bare to be so near him. His very appearance crawls under her skin. She doesn’t like being in this room with him, but she couldn’t very well let Waverly visit him on her own.

He opens the oven and feels the heat with his hand. “I needed dried dill from the market, Little Earp.” He holds up the little bottle of the herb. “I’m baking trout. There will be enough for you. Can’t say the same for your…guest.” He looks suspiciously to Nicole.

Nicole didn’t realize how hard it would be to stand here next to the man that had been infiltrating her dreams every night. She clenches her fists. She can’t believe Waverly has been keeping him safe. Keeping him hidden. It’s not easy for Nicole to forget that Waverly told her he killed her father. She doesn’t know why Waverly seems to have.

The shorter woman is practically yelling. “Bobo, the closest town is three miles from here. You seriously walked? Wait a second, you don’t have any money!”

He opens the small fridge and takes out an already prepped filet sitting in a pan. “You don’t need money when you take what you need silently. And the neighbor’s house is only one quarter of a mile from here, Earp. I’m no maniac.” He states this like it’s obvious.

“Dude! No! That’s called stealing. Good men don’t steal. Remember?”

Nicole shoots Waverly a face that says, ‘grand theft auto.’ Waverly ignores her.

He pauses and looks up at Waverly. Nicole swears he’s _actually_ trying to remember. Does memory really stretch back that far, she wonders? Through an entire lifetime as a Demon and back to when he was a man, some one hundred and forty years ago? She shakes her head in amazement. Nicole is suddenly curious if she would remember this moment, here and now, if she were to live another couple hundred years. Can a person really remember what it was like to be human, experiencing things for the first time, after all the death and sorrow they have wrought on the world? Something like understanding colors his face. It’s one step away from remorse, Nicole is surprised to note. “Oh. Yes.” He considers this for a moment but then returns to sprinkling the herb over his fish.

Waverly’s hands fall to her side in exasperation. “Where did the fish come from?”

He turns back to her, fibers of his beard glint in the setting sun. “It’s beautiful isn’t it? I caught it this morning in the river. Rainbow Trout. Reminds me of my 13th birthday. My mother had purchased one just like this, special from the General Store’s fresh stock.” He looks out the window pensively. “The neighbors didn’t have fingerling potatoes. I suppose we’ll have to do without.” He then looks down at his creation with pride.

Nicole shivers when Bobo says fingerling. She’s always hated that word. For some reason it’s a million times worse coming from him.

“Bobo, we’re not staying for dinner. I need you to tell me where The Gaze is.” Waverly says this with purpose. Nicole regrets not having asked the other girl to catch her up in the car before she came in here.

Nicole sees Bobo instantly tense at Waverly’s words. He finishes putting the pan in the oven and closes its door. He turns to Waverly, who is studying him carefully.

“Now, Earp, how is it that you came to know about _that_?”

“Dolls.”

“I see.” Bobo furrows his brow. “What was it like, Angel?”

“What was what like?” Nicole can hear how impatient Waverly is becoming.

“What was it like to see the man she couldn’t save?” He gestures to Nicole. She quickly looks to Waverly, who is momentarily speechless.

“Bobo, you know it wasn’t her. How do you even know my Nicole tried?” Waverly’s voice shakes at the memory of Nicole attempting CPR on Dolls. Nicole doesn’t like this conversation. Bobo is deflecting. He’s doing so by making Waverly relive bad memories. Her fists clench tighter still.

“Bulshar…shared things with me. He was there. He said he watched from the shadows. Mentioned how curious it was how you all wept. How you mourned a man that wasn’t blood.”

“He was family. You don’t need to be blood to be family.” Nicole can’t help but feel Waverly’s gaze flit to her, for only a moment. Nicole agrees with her. It’s how she’s always felt about Wynonna. And the family they made after Jack. With Gus and Nedley.

Bobo studies Waverly curiously when she says this. Nicole notices it and it irritates her. She doesn’t know why she doesn’t like it. She has no claim to be Waverly’s protector, but this man is creepy and haunts her dreams and she can’t help but feel like he has some unhealthy attachment to Waverly Earp. Something sentimental. It worries her.

“Bobo, The Gaze?”

“Oh, yes. I have heard of it. I—I even think I know where it is.” He stares at the floor, his eyes focused in concentration at the grain in the wooden planks. “I can’t remember.”

“Um, says the guy who just shared the memory of the meal he had on his 13th birthday almost 155 years ago?” Nicole blurts this out, unable to stay quiet any longer.

“I am not lying, Waverly.” He ignores Nicole and speaks directly to the brunette.

He walks to the couch and sits down, seemingly lost in thought. Nicole thinks he’s trying to remember. But she doesn’t trust him. Not for a second. She hopes Waverly doesn’t either.

Waverly walks to his side and stands above him. “Listen, I learned more about my…heritage today. I think I’m supposed to help you remember.”

Nicole goes nearer to Waverly, feeling uncomfortable with how close she is to Bobo. If Waverly notices her overprotectiveness, she doesn’t say anything. The sun sets right as Waverly pushes his head back against the couch with her two hands. She lays them across his forehead, adjusting her body so she is kneeling on the couch next to him. Nicole’s mouth all but drops open. The cracks in the windows allow unsullied rays of twilight to land on the surface of his face. The blue light crosses Waverly’s body. Nicole sees her then. She sees how beautiful she is. Her eyes are closed. Peaceful. Nicole feels something move within her chest. Something lighting up. Something that has been dark for, she’s not sure how long.

The space between the kneeling girl’s fingers starts to glow with orange light. Nicole takes a step back in shock. She wasn’t expecting this when she decided to bring Waverly here, whatever this is.

Bobo’s eyes are still open, but they shade over with a neon blue that Nicole can’t help but stare at. It’s so pure, she thinks. _So bright._ She feels like she might have to close her eyes. The room she stands in, which was draped in twilight a moment ago, is now full with white and orange and blue light. It’s coming out of Waverly’s fingernails and Bobo’s eyelids and the ends of Waverly’s long hair. Shooting out like lightning in all directions. Bobo is starting to pant heavily. His heaving chest almost knocking Waverly over. She seems lost in a trance. Nicole goes to stand in front of where she kneels on the couch, in case she falls.

Nicole feels the air grow colder. She also feels something like electricity running through her body. For some reason, she feels as though it is energy that is passing through all of them right now. Because of Waverly. Because of what she is doing. Nicole has never seen anything like this. The currents flowing all around the room are dancing and zigzagging and landing back on Waverly’s hands, almost cycling around the girl as if she’s the center of an invisible centrifuge.

“Waverly, I’m not sure if—” she tries to yell out over the buzz that grows in decibels. It is loud. So loud. But when Waverly speaks, she doesn’t need to raise her voice. Nicole can simply hear it, despite the rhythmic swooshing buzz of the cylindrically turning energy that shifts all around them.

Nicole is certain she’s never heard her speak in this voice before. It’s flat. Emotionless, but coated in the knowledge of…the universe, Nicole thinks. Like a spirit is speaking through her, reverberating a message that only Waverly is to speak and only Nicole is to hear.

“It is okay, Nicole Haught. I can see it. He is close, now.”

Yep, Nicole is officially freaking out.

She snaps her head up at the sound of wind gusting outside. It was calm moments ago but now, as quickly as the light began shining from inside the room, there is snow falling. Quickly. A blizzard has formed. The door swings open with a slam against the wall. Waverly doesn’t wake from her trance, even though the harsh cold air hits Nicole with a slap to her bare skin. The whole cabin is shaking now. Nicole can feel the vibrations in her feet. She thinks it’s the erratic way the tree branches scratch against the window in time with the strobing lightning that motivates her to rush to the front door and force it closed. She locks it for good measure.

The room is now completely void of warmth. She hugs herself. Waverly is still lost in some deep state, though not immune to the cold because Nicole can see goosebumps on her bare skin when she returns to her side. She grabs a blanket and throws it over Waverly’s back.

Just as quickly as it began, the light ceases. The shaking stops. The air warms with the heat of the fire Bobo had made before stealing dried dill from a neighbor’s house. Nicole glances to the window and sees a clear dimming sky.

Waverly’s eyes open and she is unaffected. Extremely calm compared to the man next to her that is gasping for air.

“Did it work?” She asks.

Nicole is speechless. “Waves, what was—” When Bobo collapses to the floor, as if the air is more breathable closer to the ground, he lets out a small voice. Smaller and quieter than Nicole has heard him use. It is now that Nicole realizes his term of endearment is not one of affection but one of truth.

“Angel, I remember.”

 _Angel._ Nicole’s heart bursts in confusion and she takes a step back from them both, scanning her eyes in, not horror, but certainly some form of surprise at Waverly’s form on the couch. She does her best to fade the expression on her face because she can now see that Waverly has noticed the way she is looking at her. Waverly looks pained. She looks desperate to explain. Nicole tries to shoot her a weak smile. It’s unconvincing. She wonders if maybe Waverly had forgotten that Nicole didn’t know this insanely huge fact about her. That maybe she assumed she knew because the other Nicole knew. Either way, they look at each other in uncomfortable silence.

Bobo’s breaths have slowed when he starts to stand.

“Bobo, where is it? Please, you have to tell me!”

He says nothing and drags his feet to the kitchen counter, leaving Waverly dumbfounded on the couch. He roughly opens one of the drawers and starts rifling through it, looking for something. He doesn’t find it and opens another drawer, throwing its contents aside, the sound of clattering silverware falling to the floor at his feet. He pulls out a knife.

“What are you doing?” Nicole says, moving to stand between Waverly and the man brandishing a rusty knife at his side. The crazed look in his eyes brings her closer to him. Anything to keep him back from the girl on the couch. She relaxes for a moment, after he looks at the dullness of the knife caused by copper colored rust and has dropped it to the floor.

“I need your utility blade, Red.”

“Absolutely not.”

He sounds impatient when he holds out his hand. “I’m not going to hurt you. Your knife…is sharp.”

Waverly speaks from across the room. “It’s okay, Nicole. Give it to him.”

“Waverly, I think that’s a ba—”

“Please.” She says in a voice that Nicole already knows she’s incapable of denying.

She lets out a sigh. _Crap._ She pulls her knife from its place on her utility belt and hands it to Bobo. She lets her hand fall to her gun. She discreetly unholsters the strap. Her hand rests there. Ready. Just in case. He goes to sit at the table. Waverly stands and joins him, inviting Nicole to take a seat at the remaining chair in the process. Bobo stretches his arm behind him and turns on the wall-light that is clamped to the edge of the bookshelf to his back. He adjusts the accordion neck of the light so that it shines directly on his right side. Nicole’s heart nearly jumps out from behind her uniform top when he flicks the knife open and puts the blade to the inside of his right bicep.

“Um, that’s not sterile.” Nicole says, fairly horrified.

He ignores her. She grimaces when she hears the sound of the cut, and only looks to Waverly for a moment before looking back to Bobo, who wipes sweat from his brow with his other arm, the knife pointing up in the air and dripping with blood as he does so.

When he makes the second cut, about an inch in length, same as the first, he puts the knife on the table. He nods at it to Nicole. She stands and takes it to the sink and rinses it off, drying it with a hand towel and then returning it to its place on her belt. When she sits back down at the table, his thumb and forefinger are already two inches deep in his muscle. Waverly’s face is screwed up in empathetic pain, but Bobo’s brow is barely furrowed. He closes his eyes as he feels around in concentration. She gathers he must have found what he is looking for because when he opens his eyes again, he is slowly pulling back his fingers, which are clenched around something small. The skin spreads to reveal a shiny shard of metal, shaped like an inch-wide square razorblade, except thicker. Almost a centimeter.

He sets it delicately in the middle of the table.

“Bobo, did you put that there?” Waverly accepts the hand towel that Nicole holds out to her and uses it to pick up the bloody object.

“I do not remember, Angel. Only that it was here.” He says in one breathe. He stands and finds another towel and proceeds to tightly wrap it around his cut arm. “Red, please.” He settles his elbow in front of her. She hesitates but then ties it off as tightly as she can, even allowing a small smile to paint on her lips when he grimaces from the pressure she applies. She hopes he sees her face.

Waverly has cleaned the object off completely, and it gleams as she twists it around in her hands, examining all sides.

She puts it in her jeans pocket and stands.

“Bobo, that needs stitches. And to be properly cleaned.” Waverly looks on in cautious concern.

“I’ve lived a long time, Earp. I know how to lick my wounds.”

“Waverly, we should go.” Nicole is already at the door. They have what they came here for. She desperately wants to leave. Waverly joins her. Before she closes the door on Bobo who is still sitting at the table, staring off in the distance, she speaks.

“Thank you, Bobo.”

“Any time, Angel.”

The oven’s buzzer rings as she closes the door behind her.

He eats his Rainbow Trout in silence.

 

* * *

 

Nicole and Waverly drive to the hospital to pick up Jeremy, who is hard at work being a fake Resident. If she’s going to use The Gaze, she’s going to need his help. She has no idea how to work the thing, and despite her anger at his deceiving all his friends, she knows she needs him. And. He’s Jeremy.

Her heart has been racing the entire drive back to the city. She can’t believe she’ll really be able to see them. Her anxiety is beyond anything it’s been, mostly because she knows that when she does lay her eyes on her world, her universe, she’ll only be able to watch. Observe. Like a live feed playing itself out.

Nicole hasn’t said anything since they got in the car. Waverly mentioned they needed to get to the hospital, and all the redhead gave in in response was a thoughtful nod. When they passed the truck sitting on the side of the road, she broke the silence.

“So, um. Waverly. You’re an Angel.” She more states it than asks it as a question like she intends.

“Yep. So, uh, you deleted the footage of me breaking Bobo out?” Waverly returns awkwardly.

“Yep.” Nicole nods without taking her eyes off the road. They both nod at their respective revelations.

Waverly proceeds to fill her in on The Gaze and all she learned earlier that day. After her long-winded explanation, they don’t speak for a full twenty minutes, until Jeremy slides in the backseat.

Waverly twists in her seat to look at Jeremy. “Hey Jer! Save any fake lives today?”

“Waverly…” he grits through his teeth, shifting his eyes to Nicole, who is looking out her own window. They swipe back to Waverly, settling on a look of pleading desperation that she keep his secret.

“I think it’s a little late for that don’t you agree, Jeremy?” Nicole turns around quickly. “And don’t worry Jer, I won’t tell Wynonna.”

He looks relieved.

“Because you’re going to.” Nicole sounds supremely decided on the matter.

“Where should we go? We probably shouldn’t do this,” Waverly points at the metal square she had just handed to the man in the backseat, “here.”

He gives Nicole an address. She pulls in to a parking lot five minutes later and parks behind the building.

“A Tim Horton’s? Really, Jeremy?” Nicole gives him a look of bafflement.

He pulls out his laptop, unfolds the screen, and plugs in a series of cords, the likes of which Waverly and Nicole have never seen before. He takes the end of one and clamps a small clip, a lead of some kind to a small notch on the edge of The Gaze. “I needed the WiFi.”

“Oh, well of course you did.” Nicole throws her hands up in the air in defeat and shakes her head. “How else would you help an Angel operate an ancient other worldly technology?” She says sarcastically.

Waverly feels like her body is on fire. Like the beating of her heart is going to burn her alive with it’s quickened pace.

“I’m not sure I’m ready for this,” she says nervously. “What if it’s bad? What if they’re not okay?”

Nicole turns to her in her seat. She places her hand on Waverly’s. “It’ll be okay. I’m right here. I will be the whole time.”

Waverly relaxes. She breathes out through her nose, in an attempt to slow her breaths. She allows herself to feel the warmth of the redhead’s palm on the back of her hand. The edges of warm fingers swiping against the fabric of her jeans ever so slightly. She can do this. Even if this isn’t her Nicole. She is _a_ Nicole. That must count for something, right? Nicole wasn’t wrong, Waverly thinks. About what she said earlier. She can’t continue to discredit her for not being the same as the Nicole she knows. She’s her own person. And the comfort she provides is valid in itself.

Jeremy hands Waverly the square.

“Okay, so I’m tuning it to the correct frequency. Basically, you give off a reading, of sorts. One that I can match to the subatomic particles that come from your world. Once the device syncs up with my algorithm, you’ll be able to operate The Gaze.”

“But how?” Her heart is racing again. “How do I work it?” She starts to worry that she won’t be able to. Not out of fear, but that she physically can’t. That she isn’t Angel enough. She wonders if only being half-Angel will get in the way? Maybe she doesn’t have enough power to activate it?

“That part, we’re not sure on. In the past, others…your father, held it, focused on something deeply attached to the world in question, in his mind’s eye, and then it just…turns on. It’s ready whenever you are.”

Nicole removes her hand from Waverly’s. She rests it on the emergency break near Waverly’s leg, in case the Earp needs it again in the near future. Waverly takes a deep breath, looks at brown eyes for a moment, and then shifts her gaze back to the matchbox-sized device held between the fingers of both hands. She closes her eyes. She tunes out the passing cars in the parking lot outside the windows, or the changing traffic lights that refract through the windshield and shine in her eyes. She searches for a sound. One in her memory. She doesn’t notice the line of cars driving through the drive-thru, or even the calm, in-and-out breaths coming from the woman next to her, or even how they are the very thing holding her together in this moment. Because when she hears it—when she hears the sound of morning laughter, when she hears the color of the orange light of dawn bouncing off red strands of hair, when she tastes and smells vanilla-dipped donuts on the tip of her tongue, when she feels the rough texture of a stiff uniform blouse beneath her fingers, the cold metal expands in her hands. She opens her eyes, not allowing the sounds and smells and emotions attached to such things to dissipate as the metal slab magically unfolds, one square at a time to reveal a larger slate. When the unfurling seems to be complete, she sees herself reflecting in the mirror’s surface.

A harsh, bright light replaces her own visage. When she looks into it, she feels connected to…everything. Everything that there is and ever was. Everything that can be. What she feels run through her, is war and peace and love and hate and murder and sacrifice and parental devotion and petty crime and art and all the noble actions and evil declarations that have ever been and even all that has been narrowly avoided in time. She can see the crossing of soulmates across universes and the near-death experiences of kings and queens that would have changed history and did in some cases. She can see it all. It passes through her eyes and into her, all at once. She knows, somehow, that she can’t focus in on any given world, without the device. That this power to connect to everything lies within her, but to see one world, The Gaze is necessary for parsing apart the seams; to untangle the extravagant and infinite web of tethered universes that she knows is coursing through her.

“Okay, it’s tuned to the correct frequency, Waverly. It should start fading in.” He speaks this in a quiet voice, unsure if his breaking the silence will ruin the connection she’s made.

Nicole looks on with wild eyes. Watching all of…everything, run through the woman sitting in the passenger seat of her police cruiser is an _odd_ experience.

Waverly watches as the white light pulsates, she can feel the device searching, the scope of what she feels in her veins grows smaller, narrower. _It’s close,_ she thinks. She can almost hear the edges—small soundbites of something familiar, focusing in like an old radio tuner.

And then it goes black.

Silence.

She feels it. She knows. She doesn’t have to ask Jeremy what it means. It’s a void. Empty. As she closes her eyes and feels her lids flit back and forth, she searches, over and over, growing more and more desperate, but she already surmises what the flatness means. It’s a blackness that screams. A deletion. It makes her heart fold and drop like a stone that’s been pulled down to the ground with a force stronger than gravity. It makes her choke. The air leaves her lungs with a swiftness that not even the air could comment on. She is dead weight in the parking lot of this Tim Horton’s. She is alone.

The slab folds back into itself when she drops it in her lap, eyes dark and unfeeling.

“It’s gone. Erased. I thought I found it, but then…”

Nicole tries to find Waverly’s eyes. She reaches out and takes her hand, squeezes it once. “What do you mean? Waves, what did you see?”

“Nothing, Nicole. I saw nothing. And I saw _everything._ But it wasn’t there.”

“I don’t understand, that doesn’t make sense…” Nicole and Jeremy share a pained look.

“It’s gone. I searched the entire Universe,” Waverly’s voice is still emotionless. Pallor taking hold of her skin. “I looked at them all. All the worlds. It’s not there. It’s like it doesn’t exist. Like it’s been wiped away. Permanently.”

She looks up to Nicole, into her eyes, and feels it truly hit her when she sees the redhead staring back. “They’re gone. My Wynonna. My Nicole. They're gone. From time. And I think its for..." she pauses, not wanting to speak it into existence but knows avoiding it will do her no good, because she can feel it in all parts of her, "...forever. They're gone."


End file.
